Nick Xylouris comes from a long line of Greek musicians and, like the best of them, he prefers to let his music do the talking.
You can’t get off stage, so you just have to accept that and keep going.
The 18 year-old son of Cretan superstar George Xylouris, and grandson of Antonis, received first prize in the Costas Tsicaderis Foundation awards last night.
“When you apply for something and audition, you’re always glad when you get it,” Xylouris says, his voice laced with the unmistakable hesitation of someone who doesn’t really like talking about themselves.
We’re talking at the end of a day of auditions for Xylouris, as he applies for university music courses, having finished year 12 this year.
“I’m proud of myself, I suppose, and I’m glad that I won it,” he adds reluctantly.
He explains that his greatest musical influences lie within his own genetic structure.
“My grandpa and my uncle and my dad,” the young man says, matter-of-factly.
He tells Neos Kosmos he grew up listening to recordings of his grandfather, Antonis Xylouris, whom he calls by his nick-name, ‘Psarantonis’.
“He’s creative, he experiments with the tradition and with the instruments and he has his own way of singing. He’s very very entertaining when he’s on stage.”
“I’ve got a whole lot of recordings of him, and I love them – he’s got his unique style,” he says.
So how does an 18 year-old musician from one of Crete’s most loved musical families make his own style? How does he differ from his grandfather, apart from not (yet) having his own Wikipedia entry?
“Just age,” he shrugs.
The young Xylouris started playing music when his father gave him his first instrument.
“He got me a really small kind of lyra when I was about ten, and I started on that,” he says.
“It was the right size for me then.”
Unlike musical virtuosos from other cultures, he wasn’t forced to endure years of formal training.
“Well, I taught myself really, just with a bit of help here and there from my dad and my grandpa,” he says.
Now, Nick Xylouris plays the Cretan lyra, the lute and the mandolin at Greek weddings, baptisms and in restaurants around Melbourne.
He says his favourite gigs have included playing the Thornbury Theatre with the Xylouris Ensemble, a group of fluctuating size made up of members of the extended Xylouris clan.
“The crowd is just great, the audience,” he says.
“They go along with the music, they get up and they clap, it’s just amazing and that’s what we need. We like the audience to be involved as well.”
Other highlights from a fledgling musical career have included playing Cretan weddings with his father, with whom he’s been performing for the past five years or so.
“If it’s a wedding we’ll be playing all night, from ten to around, if it’s early, 4 am, and that’s early for a wedding,” he says.
“Other times, we go to around 8, get home at 9 in the morning, so they go for a while.”
That’s a long shift to be working alongside your father.
But, while many 18 year-olds find their families stifling, and are ready to move out of home at the earliest possible convenience, Xylouris says playing music with his family doesn’t cause him any stress.
“Nah, nah, we get along well,” he laughs.
“Nah, nah, nah, we have fun, we enjoy it.”
Like Xylouris, the Costas Tsicaderis Foundation’s award is steeped in history.
Jessica Tsicaderis is Costas’s eldest daughter, and a board member of the Costas Tsicaderis Foundation.
She says her father, who died six years ago, was a well-loved and passionate advocate of Greek and multicultural music in Australia.
“His love for Greece as a homeland was all-encompassing,” she says.
The awards, now in their sixth year, aim to recognise young musicians, maintaining the mentoring role her father played in the music community.
Teenage saxophone and piano player Selene Messinis came second, and 12 year-old bouzouki player Stratos Gianakakis came third.
This year the foundation also gave out an encouragement award to Kristen Kalantzis, for her composition on the piano.
“It’s the most fitting tribute for him, it encompasses his generosity and his love for music,” Jessica Tsicaderis says of her musical father.
With music running in the family, it’s no surprise that the young Xylouris plans to spend his prize money on a trip to Greece next year, for Ross Daly’s summer music workshops.
It seems, blessed with the musical gene, there’s little else the young Xylouris wants to do. Like playing at those all-night Greek weddings, it seems putting down the instruments simply isn’t an option.
“You have to just keep going, don’t stop,” he says, without having to think.
“You can’t get off stage, so you just have to accept that and keep going.”
He may not be much of a talker, but with a lute in his hand, Nick Xylouris simply won’t be quiet.