The Limassol trio ANTAMA carry the oral folk tradition of Cyprus, its songs of love, migration and memory, to Cyprus House to close the High Commission’s 2026 cultural programme.
ANTAMA, a Limassol folk trio, close the Cyprus High Commission’s 2026 cultural programme at Cyprus House in St James’s on Wednesday 9 December 2026. The ceramic artist Maria Michael joins them.
ANTAMA means together, and the trio has kept the island’s folk repertoire in living use since 2010. Cypriot folk music is an oral tradition, learned by ear from the generation before. The island’s dispersal after 1974 took most of its singers from the villages that held it.
All three members sing. Anna Aristeidou also plays percussion, Nicolas Vryoni the violin and Grigoris Ioannou the lute. They move between voice and instrument within one song, as the music was performed before anyone wrote it down.
The trio has performed across Europe, North America and the Middle East. In 2014 they appeared on a Greek national television series on the traditional music and dances of Cyprus.
The programme gathers songs of love, migration, community and memory, and closes the year with carols from Cyprus and Greece. Admission is free with advance booking.
During the performance Maria Michael throws a traditional koukoumara, the water jar that once stood in the rooms where these songs were sung.