Available for:
Events with Greek Music
Article writing, translation, proofreading
Installing/ maintaining organic gardens

A few words about the writer of many articles for aeginagreece.com, who would like to advertise some of her various skills:

Souzana has lived in Greece for more than 13 years, the last 5 of them in Aegina. She came to Greece from northern California to further her study of Greek traditional music on violin and stayed. She offers her services as a musician, writer/ translator/ proofreader, and as a seasoned organic vegetable/ flower grower.

Music

Would you like to hire musicians who play authentic traditional Greek music for your wedding, baptism, party, opening, name-day, concert series or for any other event??

Souzana Raphael has been studying , teaching and performing regional Greek traditional music for more than twenty years, beginning the journey that led her to a life in Greece in the north California redwoods. She organized and played for workshops on California's north coast during the 1980s and 90s and continued study in Greece from 1993 up through the present. Her teachers have included Giorgos Bellis, Manolis Barberakis and Nikos Oikonomidis. She has performed with Greek musicians at events such as:

Concerts, weddings, baptisms, saints'day celebrations, name-day celebrations, parties, and tavernas on Naxos and Aegina islands and in Athens. In Aegina she has performed at the annual Aegina Fistiki (Pistachio) Festival, in concerts at Aegina's Folklore Museum and at Ormiskos Theater, and at the annual celebration called Lambris, on the Monday one day after Easter Sunday at Palaiahora, Aegina's hill capital from the 9th-19th centuries.

She will be playing there this year (2012) on Monday, 16 April, with one of Athens' finest musicians: Maria Ploumi, laouto/voice. The event begins in the early afternoon and is free to the public, with souvlaki and drinks for sale. Paleachora, is located on the road just across from Agios Nektarios church and monastery, and is about a 7-minute drive from Aegina harbor, with taxis available just after you come off the boat. The event is held outdoors near the church, Stavros, a short distance up the hill from the main road. A good time to show up is around 12:00-12:30, (despite the earlier hour on the posters). There is always plenty of dancing!

Violin Lessons
Private lessons on violin of one to two hours, tailored to the experience and needs of the student, who may be of any age. Beginners are welcome, as are musicians playing other instruments who want to learn regional Greek music. Learning by ear is encouraged, as is recording of lessons so that they may be listened to again and again. Languages spoken are Greek and English.

Where: In her country home on Aegina island or at her studio in central Athens.

Workshops in Greek violin styling
2-5 day workshops with group violin lessons of two-three hours each, twice per day if desired, are offered, with advance registration of 3-15 students. Individual attention will be give to each student as well, with sessions of listening to samples of recorded source material.

Where: In her country home in Aegina or at her studio in central Athens.

Music for Various Events
Souzana is available to play for events such as concerts, weddings, baptisms, openings, parties, or any other event with one or more instrumentalists/singers on instruments such as laouto (lute), oud, santouri (a kind of hammer dulcimer), kanonaki (a plucked zither-like instrument), clarinet, percussion instruments, and voice.

Repertoire: Music from the Greek islands, from Asia Minor, Thrace (in northeastern Greece), and some dance music from the Peloponnese. Music for dances and for listening both.

It should be pointed out here that the music for many celebrations on the Greek islands (and in some other places in Greece) is frequently provided by only two musicians, often violin and laouto (lute) and sometimes violin and santouri. One of the musicians also sings, and sometimes one or both of the musicians plays another instrument as well. An Asia Minor duo might include oud and violin, with the oud player also singing.

Hence, it isn't essential to hire four and five musicians to put on a successful and lively music event.

House parties, house concerts
In this time of economic stress, the house party or concert is a very nice option for an affordable music event, with food and drink provided by both householder and guests and donations for the musicians relative to the respective means of the guests. A minimum of 15 guests is needed for such an event.

Music talks in the schools, for tourist groups, cultural organizations
A 1 ½ -2-hour introduction to the incredibly varied regional Greek music traditions, with recorded samples from different areas as well as videos of live music events.

**For more details on Souzana's musical background, go to right of this page.


Language skills: Article writing, translation, proofreading

Writing
Souzana Raphael has a BA (Bachelor's degree) in English (philology) from San Francisco State College. She was born and raised in the United States, English her native language.

She has published many articles in the Rough Guide travel series (Rough Guide to the Greek Islands, Rough Guide to the Dodecanese and East Aegean Islands), in online travel guides to all of Greece, in aeginagreece.com , in Odyssey magazine, Paros/Naxos Life, and in Strings magazine.

Subject matter has included Greek music/musicians, locations in Greece, and numerous subjects related to Greece. Souzana has also written many unpublished stories based upon her life in Greece from the unique approach of a foreign musician who came to Greece and relocated there because of its traditional music.

Proofreading in English
Those who need books or other written matter in English proofread by an educated native speaker may see examples of Souzana's writing in English by looking at any of her many articles in aeginagreece.com. As she writes, she also proofreads, with an eye to correct spelling, good grammar and concise expression of ideas. She is willing to complete short free samples.

Translation
Souzana began studying Greek on her own in 1992, before her first trip to Greece in 1993, utilizing a language text to learn the basics, and keeping many notebooks into which she copied verbs and vocabulary. She has lived in Greece for more than 13 years, communicating with others mainly in Greek, and has kept her personal journal only in Greek for 12 ½ years. She has solicited correction from Greeks during all of her years in Greece, and thus considers all who have corrected her as her teachers. She reads books in Greek as well as articles in newspapers and on the internet, and listens regularly to videos of Greek music.

For an example of her translation work: See the website of traditional Greek violinist/ composer/ CD producer, Nikos Oikonomidis: oikonomidis.gr.


Would you like help starting/ maintaining an organic vegetable and flower garden??

Souzana has created large organic vegetable and flower gardens in northern California on land that wasn't being used by her neighbors, planting up to 15 varieties of lettuce, many Asian greens for both salads and stir-frying, along with long-bearing broccoli, spicy cress, many varieties of tomatoes, squash (courgettes), sugar snaps (edible-pod peas), many other vegetables and flowers.

She started many of her seeds in a greenhouse, and planted out seedlings in beds enriched with compost including horse manure trucked in from a local stable. She sold vegetables and flowers to local coastal restaurants, transporting them in her pickup truck. In Greece she has continued planting gardens all-year-round.

Would you like to learn how to grow some of your own food even with little space?
Even in a small space one can grow at least some of one's own food, especially salad greens and greens for winter like chard, Broccoli raab/ rapini, kale, etc.). In Greece one sees many flowers grown in everything from old olive oil cans to used tires - especially geraniums - along with the occasional tomato plant. Container gardening is certainly an option for everyone—even those without yards!! And containers can be used for salad greens and other vegetables as well as for flowers.

Would you like to learn how to make compost?
In Greece (as in many places in the world), there is an appalling waste of good organic matter - table scraps (especially from restaurants) and weeds from land-clearing which gets stuffed into plastic bags and gets taken away as "trash". A lot of the food waste gets mixed in with all the other "trash" (much of which is recyclable) and then dumped in the landfills, along with the plastic bags (otherwise recyclable) that contain all. Souzana can guide you in your creation of compost piles, using scraps from the table, dry leaves, weeds, a little manure, and whatever is readily available. Compost is easy to make if done properly, and contrary to the mistaken belief of many, does not smell any worse than good garden soil or attract pests.