UPDATE (2-2-2008): This remix is still in the Top 100 charts, today at position 32, after a peak position was reached as No. 22. Furthermore, there is now a second remix, totally different:
Please see UPDATE: “MIKIS TRANCE” enters the Top 50 Chart, as No.43
“Mikis Trance 1″, a sample of my Mikis Theodorakis remixes, has entered the Top 100 Chart of Trance music, in the SoundClick site. It became No. 97 No. 43 (among 25000+ songs in the music category -subgenre- Trance), ascending in the Charts (from position 111):
My trance remixes of Mikis Theodorakis’ music have been approved and encouraged by him personally: (A letter by Mikis expressing his support has been included in a previous blog posting, here, in Greek – where a music video-clip of the original song is also included).
I met Mikis Theodorakis in March 2006, after he invited me to his Athens home, near the Acropolis. I had sent him an e-mail, requesting his permission to use digital samples of his music. Initially, I had not taken this work… too seriously. So, I was quite astonished to hear him say “You are on the right track”, smiling with a radiance I will never forget!
The first CD I brought to Mikis (in March 2006) contained 7 trance remixes of songs (from his “Axion Esti” album). They were undoubtedly quite imperfect, at the time, but Mikis listened to each one of them very carefully; beginning to end. As a result, our meeting (scheduled for half an hour) lasted more than two hours. At some point, I felt the need to… apologize for my musical imperfections! However, Mikis answered: “Don’t worry about the flaws; all mistakes can be fixed”.
At this point, I realised -in awe- that those were not the words of a… condescending “music star” (like so many others), but they were the words of a very great (yet also very humble) man, whose exceptionally advanced musical wisdom empowered him to transcend surface-level imperfections, digging out and appreciating the deepest essence and the intended innovations, inside any piece of music. This was -of course- very good news! Undoubtedly, if Mikis Theodorakis believed that those remixes were not worth his time, he could have easily (and probably quite politely) refrained from expressing his approval. He could have also easily avoided any further contact with me personally, if those results didn’t interest him. On the contrary, he suggested that we must keep in touch, and that this work can go on much further, reaching the level of professional music production.
In the months that followed, Mikis and I exchanged a lot of e-mail; my own letters to him were quite longish at times. I explained precisely what I had in mind, both theoretically and practically. The new music goal was no longer to distribute “free trance remixes” of his music through the internet, but to create innovative serious results, targeting Dance Clubs, not only in Greece but (even more so) throughout the world. Meanwhile, I was occasionally dropping inside his home’s mailbox parcels with constantly improving versions of the original remixes and began organizing my music activities more professionally, with more equipment, as well as collaborators (e.g. for professional “sound mastering”).
In August 2006, Mikis Theodorakis listened to a new CD which earned his wholehearted approval (expressed in a letter that followed): It contained three different remix-versions of his chart-buster (in the seventies and eighties) “Ena to Helidoni”, translated as “There is only one swallow”. The lyrics were a poem by Nobel-winning Greek poet Odysseus Elytis, turned by Mikis into a tune that almost every Greek was singing or humming, at the historical turning point when the Greek junta collapsed, in 1974.
The original song that led to the “Mikis Trance” remix, is still played in official celebrations and ceremonies (e.g. in memory of the 1973 students’ uprising against the junta). However, some Greeks today would frown, or… freak out of their minds, when hearing that the same song (epic and heroic in mood) can also become an excellent… Chart-buster in Trance and Club music! However, Mikis Theodorakis is not only a great composer (and a great man), but also very open-minded! He wholeheartedly embraces music innovations, e.g. tolerating my… extreme remix modifications of his music.
This sample track “Mikis Trance 1” has been kept deliberately short (less than 3 minutes long) but it demonstrates the basic principles and the “music feeling” of the complete remixes – to be released in the near future. Based on only a few seconds of music by Mikis Theodorakis, this trance remix (more appropriately a “remake”) is based on an enhanced “Atlantean expansion” of the original, not only in rhythm but also in additional melodies and in harmony. (a summary of my “Atlantean Style” theory is in a web-page here).
Some fans of Mikis Theodorakis are probably not as open minded as… Mikis himself. Ah well, this is to be expected. In his letter (here), he expressed some caution about possible negative reactions, “which are expectable”…
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The “MIKIS TRANCE VIRUS” will soon start spreading; The new 21st Century Revolution of Mikis Theodorakis has just began!
(wow…) 
P.S.
Meanwhile, some of my other songs and remixes are climbing higher, in the Top 100 Charts:
- “Renaissance over Byzantium” is now (January 13 2008) Number
47 42 (among about 6,000 songs in Electronica > Mellow):
More entries in the Top 100 Charts are in another blog posting:
http://omadeon.wordpress.com/2007/06/05/top100charts
“Renaissance over Byzantium” enters the TOP 100 CHARTS after only 1 week: Highest charts position in subgenre: # 69 ( 5,996 songs currently listed in Electronica > Mellow )
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