Parea - Παρεα

Members:
• Kostya LaPasha - laouto, vocals
• Robin LaPasha - sandouri, vocals
• Doris Smith - violin, defi
• guest artist: Richie Leonard - clarinet

Parea plays dance tunes and songs from the Greek mainland, islands, and Asia Minor. We are based in Durham, North Carolina since 1993. We perform on traditional instruments for dance parties, intimate coffeehouses and cafés, or festival stages - wherever we can bring the excitement of Greek traditional music.

Page Index
• Parea performances and pictures
• Parea audio samples

Where we've played

Parea's larger-scale performances include:
• opening for an event of the North Carolina Museum of the Arts summer movie series (2003); and
• the Washington DC area Balktoberfest multi-band charity event (2008).

We have also played at the Raleigh International Festival over many years,

and appear regularly in local restaurants including Apex's (former) Xios Cafe,

and Raleigh's Neomonde Deli.

Audio Samples

Lately in Parea - brief audio samples from recent practices; click on the names to play them... (These are raw "room" recordings only; no studios, mixer, or separate microphones.) :
• a kalamatiano dance about two lovers on a boat: Karavi Karavaki
• an old rebetika classic song: Oli Rebetes Tou Dounia
• a hassaposerviko (or hora, or a dance by many other names!): Koulouriotiko
• and a Smyrneika song in a zeibekiko rhythm, lamenting a lover's addiction: Dervisaki.

Parea also performs in a slightly different configuration; here is an example of a tsiftetelli or 'bellydance'-style song: Hariklaki

As our samples above suggest, our active repertoire consists of songs and tunes from Greek folk and popular genres which include nisiotika (island music), a large amount of pan-Hellenic dance tunes, and also two varieties of the Greek blues: Smyrneika--the Asia Minor-influenced soulful blues with rich melodic ornamentation--and rebetika, the more edgy Greek blues of 1930s exiles and outlaws.

Please contact us at the email in the image at the bottom of this page to arrange an appearance by Parea at your event or venue!