ROSS DALY

Ross Daly (September 29) is an Irish musician, specializing in the Cretan lyra and the Afghan rabab. Born on 29 September 1952 in Norfolk, England by Irish parents. Due to his father's profession, who was involved in computer development, Ross Daly changed many places of residence around the world, in his childhood, such as England, Canada, Japan and California. His involvement with music began from his childhood with the encouragement of his mother, who was quite fond of music. Initially he began with classical music with instruments such as piano, cello and later guitar with which he had been more engaged as a teenager. Around the age of eighteen, having reunited with his family in California, and San Francisco, he comes into contact with various circles of Eastern music as well as the organs that constitute it. He will soon be fascinated by this and at a young age he will travel to various countries, from the eastern Mediterranean to the Far East. His purpose is to search and deepen the musical traditions of these places. In 1970 and 1972 he visits Crete for a short time and in 1975 he decides to stay on the island where he will be taught the Cretan lyra by a great teacher and master of the time, Kostas Mountakis. At the same time he will make several trips to Turkey to delve deeper into Ottoman and Turkish music. In 1990, he will proceed with his own modification of the Cretan lyra by adding elements from the Byzantine lyre, as well as Indian sarangi. His music combines elements from different parts of the East, both in terms of the instruments he uses and in the various rhythms included in his discography. This is also one of the reasons he uses the rabab because, as he says, this instrument has a neutrality that makes it easy to be present at various eastern rhythms. In his discography, besides the Cretan lyra and rabab he uses strings, such as sarangi, oud, sazi, tambur, lute, and Asia Minor lyra. In Crete, where he has lived for the past few decades, he studies and teaches the Cretan musical tradition. In 1982, he founded the Labyrinth Music Workshop, housed in the village of Houdetsi of Heraklion (20 km from Heraklion), aiming at the collection, preservation and promotion of traditional musical instruments from all over the world. One can find over 250 folk and traditional folk music instruments, that were mainly collected on Daly's trips to the East. The Labyrinth Music Workshop also organizes various musical performances and discussions with musicians from Greece and abroad. He has performed many concerts in Europe and the world and has collaborated with many Greek and foreign musicians such as Stelios Petrakis, Vassilis Soukas, Psarogiorgis, Petrolukas Chalkias, Kelly Thoma, Dimitris Stavrakakis, Michalis Nikoloudis, Zohar Fresco, Trio Semirani, Bastan Abraham, Bakalas Sissakos and others. In 2004 he was the artistic director of the Olympic Games cultural program for the city of Heraklion and single-handedly organized and oversaw the implementation of 15 concerts with 300 artists from different parts of the world.