Yannis K. Ioannou > "Kostas Ioannou", my refugee father (Free podcast), Download mp3

Text, background music, narration: Yannis K. Ioannou

I am the composer, arranger and producer of records and radio shows, Yannis K. Ioannou. The six-minute podcast you have before you is a very condensed and summarized version of the entire incredible life of my refugee father, Kostas Ioannou from Ainos (Enez) of Eastern Thrace in the Evros Delta.

In 1982, on his birthday, I cast a net to catch all the details of his life, which I picked up eight years later after his death in 1990. The net was a box of 10 60-minute cassettes on which he recorded his entire life. My desire to publish a book about his incredible life has not yet been realized, but the encouragement of Matthew Frantzeskakis from the ChaniaFilmFestival CFF helped me to pick up the thread again and start to untangle it. This story hurts me a lot and the biggest obstacle is the emotional storm it causes me, resulting in me losing my composure and control. However, in this six-minute podcast, I think I managed to give a foretaste. The background music is an improvisation that came to me spontaneously, listening to my own story, which was recorded without having a text in front of me. All of this is a spontaneous birth, with some subsequent corrections. I hope you feel what I felt. Only then will you understand…

Yannis K. Ioannou (composer) Athens, Mar 03 2021