Name: Fani Konstantinidou
Nationality: Greek
Occupation: Sound artist, composer, improviser, musicologist
Current Release: Fani Konstantinidou's latest album is Bacterial Dance, out via Decaying Spheres. She is also one of the artists performing at the Moving Furniture Festival at Splendor Amsterdam on March 29th 2024. For more information and tickets, go here.

To keep reading, we recommend our Coen Oscar Pollack interview, for the thoughts of another act on the festival's roster.



If you enjoyed this Fani Konstantinidou interview and would like to stay up to date with her music, visit her official homepage. She is also on Instagram, and Facebook.



You've spoken about your position in between two countries, Greece and the Netherlands in the press release to your Winter Trilogy on MFR. Can you talk about that a little bit and how it manifests itself in your work, in your choice of tools, and your approach to performing and producing?

I wouldn't say that there is a big difference. The available technology is more or less the same and I perform with computers. So, I wouldn't say that I would do something different if I lived in Greece right now. The difference is that as a Greek person, I have been exposed to Greek folk music, which is quite different from any folk music in the West. I'm familiar with Eastern and Balkan music folk music, and I have quite easy access to these instruments so I can experiment or include them in my work.

I grew up in a home where Eastern and Western musical instruments coexisted. My father plays the oud, I used to play classical guitar, and there were various other instruments in the house. I'm positive that my familiarity with this instruments and their sound affects my musical decisions subconsciously.



Another manifestation is probably related to the social context. As a woman in a male-dominated musical genre, I have been isolated and patronised from a young age. 15 years ago, when I arrived in the Netherlands, I noticed a small difference. I was taken a bit more seriously, and I had a few more opportunities to perform.  Although here, too, it was (and still is) a male-dominated field.

At the same time, I met a few more women—literally three or four—and we created our own opportunities. So, there was some change through this aspect. That was quite important, because I really think if I had stayed in Greece all these years, I wouldn't continue to make music today. Of course, today we are not in the same situation as in the past, there is some improvement, and the problem is being tackled occasionally. But we all know that we are still not there yet, and that's a worldwide issue.

Today, I notice that in Greece the improvement is much slower compared to the Netherlands. I am not only referring to the ratio of men to women who are involved in electronic music concerts, but also the general attitude of the people involved in these communities. There is more awareness of the problem in the Netherlands, and I see less often patriarchal behaviors by colleagues.

In the end, I would say that even though this fact doesn't really affect my music in a direct way, it does affect it in some ways. First of all, it's a matter of demanding and taking more space which is encouraging (or not) to stay creative. Second, it affects my collaborations, what kind of people I want to involve in my music, how often, etc. I choose to collaborate with people with whom I can communicate and treat me equally, and I avoid certain festivals and events. These are not musical decisions per se—but for sure they do have certain musical results.

With regards to this background, is your impression that our perception of sound is universal – or (very) different in different parts of the world?

No, I certainly don't think that sound perception is universal. Joseph Haydn said that his music is ‘a language understood all over the world’. Many people have discussed this, or they present music as a universal language. But I really don't believe so, musicologists have argued on this topic as well.

I think our appreciation or perception is very different depending on our memories and background. This is true not only about music, but of course also with regards to everyday sounds or field recordings. For example, I listen to field recordings from Greece and the Netherlands in a very different way compared to people who never lived there or people who don't understand the local culture. This is because I have my own memories, and I have my own understanding of the local society.

I think this is actually quite powerful tool for the musicians and the composers. We can use it to communicate our ideas differently depending on the listeners that we are aiming for. However, in the end, we can never be sure about how our listeners experience our sounds.