Beyond Mode

Beyond Mode was an ensemble playing at the boundaries of modal music of the Mediterranean, and animating a soundworld outside fashion. We were four musicians that found each other while listening carefully to Crete's musical Labyrinth: Rachel Beckles Willson, Evgenios Voulgaris, Ciro Montanari and Kostas Tsarouchis.

In the years before Covid-19, since when most our lives have changed course, we excavated work by a female musician at the Ottoman court in 18th-century Istanbul, Dilhayat Kalfa, moving through her compositions into newly-written instrumental pieces and songs for our unique quartet of voice, oud, yayli tanbur, Indian tabla and double-bass. At the heart of our work was Sing no Sad Songs for Me, the composition that launched our ensemble.