With this lyre I thee enchant

In Greek mythology the lyre was the chosen musical instrument that Orpheus played to perfection to charm almost anything to dance. Orpheus may not be at the Cyprus Museum on Wednesday when a number of ancient instruments will be played but that doesn’t mean that the concert, and the chance to learn all about these instruments, will be any less entertaining.

The event, under the name Calling Upon the Muses, invites us all to get to know a number of reproduced ancient instruments. We can touch and play with these newly crafted ancient musical instruments, meet the people behind the project and discover how easy it really is to get the lyre to enchant people into dancing.

These instruments will include, of course, the lyre (chelys and barbitos types), the phorminx, the cithara, the sambuca and the bendir.

A short concert will also take place within the Cyprus Museum where the audience will have the chance to listen to the Seikilos Epitaph, which is the oldest surviving complete musical composition in existence, and other surviving ancient melodies, along with modern improvisations with the accompaniment of an 11-string lyre, vocals and duduk.

The reproductions of these ancient instruments have been designed and crafted by the Anastasios Musical Instruments Workshop in collaboration with the 3D Laboratories of the International Hellenic University in Thessaloniki and the Electronic Media Laboratory of the School of Journalism and Mass Communications of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.

Calling Upon the Muses
Music performance with ancient instruments. April 6. Cyprus Museum, Nicosia. 6pm-8pm. Tel: 22-865854

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.