Dimitra Lazaridou-Chatzigoga (Thessaloniki, Greece 1981) is currently based in London. She has lived in Barcelona for several years, where she acquired a phd thesis in theoretical linguistics, investigating the notion of (in)definiteness.

During her stay there she gradually began getting involved in experimental non-academic music. She was influenced and attracted by free and electro-acoustic improvisation, its multiple historical situations and its concurrences with modern composition strategies and jazz.

She plays the zither since 2006. She treats it as the interior of a piano, extending its sonic possibilities by preparing its strings making use of various objects detached from their usual usage, as well as of electronic media as the e-bow. She is particularly interested in the co-articulation of acoustic and electronic sounds on the resonance box of an instrument. The preparations she uses on the zither are not placed before the playing/performance, but form a substantial part of the playing itself, which is influenced by the placement and removal of various kinds of objects on the zither.

She has recorded the piece Paraula clau in Ferran Fages’ guitar cd Cançons per a un lent retard, which is based on the detuning(s) of the guitar. She has a stable formation with Ferran Fages as ap’strophe, under which they have released their first cd ‘objects sense objectes’ in Etude Records in May 2009, while their second cd ‘corgroc’ is out on Another Timbre in April 2010.

Has played with Ferran Fages, Ruth Barberán, Alfredo Costa Monteiro, Ivan Palacký, Birgit Ulher, Christine Sehnaoui and Felipe Araya Muñoz (cdr ‘paisatges’ in kukuruku recordings). She has collaborated with the dancer and choreographer Constanza Brncic in the dance piece Entra_ser mirada.

Dimitra has recently formed a duo with Danae Stefanou (piano) and is currently involved in the music scene in Athens, playing with musicians based there (Anastasis Grivas, Nikos Veliotis, Sister Overdrive among others), as well as organizing concerts of improvised music.


// background photo by Corinna Triantafyllidis