Music of Cyprus

Cyprus changed hands numerous times prior to the medieval era, and was an important outpost of Christianity and Western European civilization during the Crusades.

During that peak, Pierre I de Lusignan made a three-year tour on Europe, bringing with him an entourage of musicians that impressed Charles V in Rheims so much that he donated 80 francs in gold to them.

His daughter, Anne de Lusignan, brought a manuscript after her marriage to Louis, Count of Geneva, which contained 159 folios with over two hundred polyphonic compositions, both sacred and secular.

A key-figure of that era was Ieronimos o Tragodistis (Greek: Ιερώνυμος Τραγωδιστής, Hieronymus the Cantor), a Cypriot student of Gioseffo Zarlino, who flourished around 1550-1560 and, among others, proposed a system that enabled medieval Byzantine chant to correspond to the current contrapuntal practices via the cantus.

Essentially, this work consisted of a simplification of the Byzantine musical symbols which, by the early 19th century, had become so complex and technical that only highly skilled chanters were able to interpret them correctly.

The chiatistá (Cypriot Greek: τσιαττιστά, "spite [song]") is improvised antiphonal singing akin to the Cretan mantinada, to express a range of themes be it satire, love, mourning etc.

In the early 1990s, Godblood started the local Black metal scene, acting firstly as a school-band, and later on continuing with their small record label 'Throne Productions'.

There were also a couple of active Thrash metal bands during that era giving great live shows such as Regicide (supporting Epidemic) and then Scotoma.

Active bands, with releases and/or live shows of the 2000s (some appeared also in magazines and websites around the globe):[6] During this decade, there was an uprising of concerts of different sizes and musical directions across the island.

This led to number of greek metal bands like Rotting Christ, SepticFlesh, Crossover, Nightfall, Ravencult, and W.E.B., as well as international acts like Anathema and Sepultura visiting and performing in Cyprus.

The band focuses upon the unique character of Cypriot folkloric music, enriching traditional songs with new arrangements, melodies, rhythms and sounds and crafting a style distinctively their own.

Mikros Kosmos's full-length original album moves away from the classic rebetika with an affection for minimal arrangements and a lyrical abstraction which is uncommon in the history of Greek music.