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Labyrinthine
Ross Daly’s Cretan music school Labyrinth is an inspirational centre for music of the region and beyond. We sent Andrew Cronshaw to take a look.
H
eraklion airport, on the island of Crete. I’m on the way to the village of Houdetsi for a few days at Labyrinth, Cretan lyra master Ross Daly’s musical
workshop. Vagelis, whom I recognise from the link I’ve been given to his Face- book page, arrives in his father’s taxi to pick me up. He drives me the twenty kilo- metres in the dark and stops at a door in a wall; he tells me this is Labyrinth.
I open the door. Behind it there’s a gate, and behind that a dog, but it seems friendly, so I go in. I hear neys, a qanun, an oud playing a winding melody, and through the stone building’s lighted win- dows I see fretted instruments in display cases. I find a door, with a key that opens
it, and follow the music to find a circle of players, who stop and look at me. I say “Um, hello, is Ross here?” None of them is Ross. Turns out he and his wife and fellow Cretan-lyra player Kelly Thoma are away doing a gig in Athens, back in two days.
In a break in the long makam tune they’re learning, Berlin-based Greek painter and ney player David Benforado, whose idea it was that I should come here, gets up to greet me and makes me a cup of herbal tea. There’s wi-fi, so I do my emails until the session ends. We all go for a meal in the taverna down the street, where a look in the pots simmering in the kitchen reveals chicken and good chicken soup. The taverna owner, who’s been topping up the flasks of what turns out to be double-
vision raki and pouring ever more wine from a big basketed flagon, says as we attempt to reckon up, “Pay me tomorrow.”
Reaching my one-room apartment up a hill across the village, by the light of the bright stars and the landmark of a huge overhanging rock looming in the darkness, I jot down impressions on my iPad because I can focus on it whereas when I close my eyes the world goes round and round.
Morning. Coffee outside a taverna on the village square. Sparrows chatter, a hoopoe glides as the old men of the vil- lage chat. Breakfast in another café oppo- site Labyrinth’s side door in the wall; the owner and cook turns out to be last night’s taxi-driver Vagelis, who’s also a musician. Feels like I’m in a Cretan Local Hero.
Photo: Andrew Cronshaw
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