Chrysoula Kechagioglou is on her way to become a familiar face – and voice – to people in Australia interested in Greek music. The ethereal singer has been in the country three times, two of which were with one of the legendary groups of Melbourne’s rebetiko schene, the Apodimi Kompania. Which explains her presence at the Rebetiko Festival that will take place on Saturday 10 March at the Melbourne Recital Centre. Only this time, she’s not coming with a rebetiko band, but with her other project, the all-female acoustic group Purpura.

The name comes from latin – it’s the word for the colour purple. “We’ve been looking for a name for a long time,” says the singer, “because we wanted something that sounded Greek, that would sound like a word one would hear at a Greek village, but it would also be easy to read abroad, because we were interested in playing outside of Greece, from the start.”

This is more complicated than one can imagine. An invitation from abroad, or an expression of interest is not enough. In order for Purpura to be able to come to Australia and tour and play at the Rebetiko Festival, but also at Sydney’s Greek Festival, at Adelaide’s ‘Hellenica’ festival, at Cobargo Folk Festival and at the National Folk Festival of Canberra, the band had to do an online crowdfunding campaign. “It went very well, thankfully,” says Chrysoula.

“Nobody has money to spare in Greece at the moment, but everyone chipped in – we’ve even had a person who contributed despite being unemployed for two years himself. This gave us wings to fly. This is how we got to pay our fare, otherwise we’d spent six weeks here and end up returning broke. We’d come for the journey and the experience, which is very important, but it’s also important to be able to pay the rent – and this is becoming a luxury in Greece at the moment.”As far as accounts of what it means to be an artist in crisis-stricken Greece go, this is probably the most accurate.

“The best thing that happened with the Crisis ist that some people who were interested in music, became more focused to things that they consider authentic and true. So some ‘strange’ bands, like us, suddenly got a fanatic following, people who are committed, they come to our shows, they bring friends, our audience gets bigger and bigger.”But what is it that makes Purpura a ‘strange’ band? Is it the fact that it is comprised by five women (Effie Zaitidou – kanun; Maria Ploumi – lute; Sofia Serefoglou – flute; Elsa Papeli – cello?

Is it because the acoustic instruments used combine two different traditions, the Greek (kanun and lute) and the western ‘classical’ one (cello and flute)? Is it the repertoire, comprised by traditional Greek songs, but also celtic, mediterranean, latin american – an eclectic mix of songs from around the world? It is all that and more. “At the core, we play songs that we like,” explains the singer. “And the common denominator is exactly the fact that they are played by instruments that combine different cultures themselves, it is the sound that the instrument make which brings all the elements together. And this is our goal to show how Greek music has a place next to any other, but also how all different musical traditions around the world share a lot of common traits and themes.

All the people go through the same things and we express them in a similar way, in our lyrics, which means that we experience them in a similar way – it’s a shame that we often feel so divided and separated from other nations. What we say with our music is that we are not less than any other nation, but we also don’t feel superior. We are a nation among others, very significant, we have a lot to give and a lot to take, to get better. Any recepient of Greek education – which is who ancient Greeks considered to be a ‘Greek’ person – is open to other nations and has something to give to them. This is the message that I would like to pass through our music.”

This is exactly the point of such an eclectic group’s presence at a Rebetiko Festival. “I think that Rebetiko, as a genre, is a bit misunderstood,” says Chrysoula Kechagioglou. “It is seen as this ‘closed’, ‘concrete’ genre, but what we have discovered playing this music is that the composers themselves, despite not being educated, had been open to influences from the neighbouring countries and this is present in the songs. Not to mention that Rebetiko itself comes from Asia Minor, from multi-cultural cities such as Smyrna.

“Which explains the appeal of this music to a multicultural city such as Melbourne. “When I came to Australia with the Apodimi Kompania, I saw how greatly interested non-Greeks are in Greek music,” she says.

“It is really moving and it is important to remember, from time to time, how significant our tradition is. Sometimes strangers can be the best mirror for that. When you play Greek music to someone who has never heard it before or cannot imagine how rich this tradition is, you see it through their eyes, through fresh eyes, and this is a great gift. What I’m mostly interested in is to travel through music and meet new people and places I don’t know. It’s a challenge to see how music can connect people who don’t know each other and don’t share experience. Every time that I’ve been to Australia, I’m moved by this, by how people respond to music, Greek people, but also non-Greeks, who often cry when we sing, even though they don’t understand the words. This proves that you don’t have to share a language with someone for them to understand you.”

But how does she explain the appeal of Greek music to non-Greeks? “Traditional Greek music originates from our bodies, it was born in our feasts and celebrations, in our most spontaneous moments, which are not that common in Anglo-Saxon culture. I think that Greek music sounds more primitive to them, more dionysian, more visceral and this is something that they feel and appreciate. And a lot of them show great interest in the plight of Greece. When I first came to Australia, in 2013, with the ‘Cavafy Team’ from Syros, it was the time that the Crisis was at its hardest and a lot of them understood how unfair descriptions of Greece in foreign media were, which means that they had looked into other sources of information and had formed an educated opinion on our issues; this made me feel great in Australia.”

*Chrysoula Kechagioglou and Purpura are playing at the Rebetiko Festival, at Melbourne Recital Cente, on Saturday 10 March.
For tickets, go to: https://e.melbournerecital.com.au/booking/production/bestavailable/13648?performance=