The 3rd Floor Quartet is a jazz ensemble from Ioannina, consisting of professional musicians: Nikos Kypriotis on trumpet, Dimitris Nikas on piano, Efthymis Sferopoulos on double bass, and Kostas Dimitriou on drums.
We had the pleasure and opportunity to host the ensemble on Sunday, August 28, 2016, at Rodotopi, first in the RGE Hall for a highly engaging introductory seminar on jazz, followed by a concert in the courtyard of the Rodotopi Primary School together with our guitar ensemble.
Both events were organized by our association, in collaboration with the 3rd Floor Quartet, who offered their participation free of charge, and under the auspices of the Municipality of Zitsa.
The seminar initially included a historical overview of jazz music (its socio-economic context, main representatives, influences, etc.), an analysis of its basic structural elements, and the characteristic feature of improvisation. The theoretical section was supported by brief notes prepared by the ensemble and distributed to the participants.
This was followed by a presentation of the musical instruments, each member of the ensemble demonstrating their role in jazz through live musical examples. Finally, the seminar concluded with a demonstration performance of two jazz pieces by the 3rd Floor Quartet.
Photos: Christos Parginos
The concert consisted of three parts. In the first part, the 3rd Floor Quartet performed alone, presenting instrumental pieces as well as jazz songs sung by Stavroula Naki and Sotiria Athanasopoulou.
Next, our Guitar Ensemble collaborated with the 3rd Floor Quartet, a unique combination for our ensemble that left an excellent impression.
Finally, the concert concluded with the summer program of the Rodotopi Guitar Ensemble, as presented in previous entries (for video of the core summer 2016 program, you can watch our performance in Preveza by clicking here).
Below is a video by Nikos Zois, showing the collaboration of the Rodotopi Guitar Ensemble with the 3rd Floor Quartet.
