ELENI ERA
answers the MUSIC WORKS Questionnaire
1. QUALIFICATIONS?
I don’t give up easily.
2. CREATIVE LIFE HIGHLIGHTS?
When I decided to be a musician and the day my first album was finished.
3. AMBITIONS?
To never stop loving, growing, being creative and singing!
4. SONGS YOU WISH YOU HAD WRITTEN?
The second movement from Maurice Ravel’s Sonatine pour Piano.
5. DESERT ISLAND DISCS?
Choir music by Maurice Durufle, Eric Whitacre, Miklos Kocsar, Ola Gjeilo, Franz Biebl, Benjamin Britten, Johannes Brahms.
6. FAVOURITE ARTISTS/BANDS OF ALL TIME?
Freedom Candlemaker, Flying Ibex, Alice Phoebe Lou, Sancho 003, Trio Tekke, James Blake, Sufjan Stevens, Joan as Police Woman, Maurice Ravel, Claude Debussy, Manos Hadjidakis.
7. WHAT MUSIC ARE YOU LISTENING TO NOW?
Mostly classical music.
8. THE LAST BOOK YOU READ?
«The Gift of Anger» by Arun Gandhi.
9. HOBBIES?
Never had one!
10. VINYL, CASSETTE, CD, MP3, WEB STREAMING?
Vinyl when I am feeling romantic, CD when driving and Mp3/Web streaming when I am traveling on the train.
11.MUSIC IN THE AGE OF THE INTERNET?
Easy accesibility.
12. WHAT IS YOUR PERSONAL MOTTO?
Enjoy the ride.
ELENI ERA
RISE LOVE
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Press Release
Louvana Records is proud to present the debut album by singer-songwriter Eleni Era out on CD, LP and on all digital platforms.
“I’m still finding myself and my own nature. I know that I’m a young Cypriot woman from a small village living in Berlin. I also know that I’m an endless dreamer who finds her dreams more fascinating than the real world. This is where my music comes from.”
Eleni Era is a Berlin-based classical pianist and girls’ choir leader who’s trying her hand at assembling her collection of songs into her debut album Rise Love. After appearing in a series of intimate, stripped-down live videos from eleven63 Sessions where she shared “No One’s Near”, “How”, and “Beautiful Moon”, Eleni Era has presented an expressionistic music video for her single “Not Her” along with the announcement of her album.
Her album Rise Love released on 1 March is confessional – at times confronting bleak situations of despair, facing loneliness and the passage of time as well as the necessity to love one’s self – but also sees the singer-songwriter recounting childhood adventures and the innocent songwriting sessions she shared with her siblings. It is filled with tales of a young woman’s coming of age, faced with the challenges of change. Eleni Era’s devotion to these experiences and their indivisibility from her identity are tangible throughout. Her delivery of silky-smooth vocals which extend from full-bodied to delicate, crystalline runs, are driven by a background of lush piano chord sequences, trance-like and mellow beats, and folk melodies. “A lot of these songs have been written during sleepless nights. I find salvation in heading to the piano, humming through a yet unborn melody at 3 am, waiting for the exact words to come out so that I can listen to what they have to say. It helps me understand myself and I heal in the process. This process is also what the album is about.”
In Rise Love, Eleni Era’s songs surge together, inviting listeners to contemplate on their own experiences of facing life’s challenges and hardships when it seems that there is no one else to share them with, and allowing oneself to be vulnerable enough to let others into their life. Eleni Era sings in both English and her native Greek and brings forth equal grace and conviction. The songs showcase her on vocals, piano, and synths. Long-time friends and fellow artists, Lefteris Moumtzis (Freedom Candlemaker) and Andreas Trachonitis are on production duties, and Moumtzis is also on most of the accompaniment (electric guitars, bass and drums).
Originally from a small village on the mediterranean island, Cyprus, Eleni Era was trained as a classical concert pianist and has won various distinctions. Since her teen years she has been working as a musician in local bars and hotels. From the age of 18, she continued her training in her current base in Berlin, performing in concert halls around Germany and in venues like the Konzerthaus Berlin and the Kammersaal der Philharmonie Berlin, before conducting the junior groups of the Berlin State Choir for girls. The changing musical landscape of her native Cyprus, with artists beginning to push boundaries and experimenting both with tradition and their experiences in other countries is apparent in Eleni Era’s artistry in Rise Love.
