Kelly Thoma: Lyra Player and the Magic of the Labyrinth Musical Workshop

Conversations with Musicians, with Leah Roseman

Kelly Thoma is a Greek musician who plays the Cretan lyra player and this episode has beautiful music and a wide-ranging conversation including Kelly’s personal story of becoming a musician after training as a dancer, Cretan culture, the influence of Ross Daly and the Labyrinth Musical Workshop which he founded in 1982. Kelly speaks so eloquently about her love of music and collaboration; I really appreciate this opportunity to have in-depth conversations with my musical guests; please use the timestamps if you want to jump to any topics or music, but I hope you’ll take the time to listen to the whole episode on your favourite podcast player or the video on my YouTube. Show notes and transcript linked here as well: https://www.leahroseman.com/episodes/kelly-thoma

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Timestamps:

(00:00) Intro

(02:12) Crete, the lyra, Ross Daly

(12:13) lyra duo Kelly with Ross “Anamkhara”

(18:49) how Kelly discovered the music of Ross Daly and changed her life

(33:24) learning and teaching music

(43:34)cellist Mayu Shviro

(44:43) duo with Mayu Shviro “Kontylies”

(51:04) Mayu Shviro

(53:29) “Flutter” Kelly Thoma quartet from the album Anamkhara. Mayu Shviro, Paavlos Spyropoulos, Kirill Osherov

(57:28) TOKSO quartet

(01:01:18) TOKSO compilation video clip

(01:06:24) different bowed instruments I’ve featured on this series

(01:07:52) Cretan culture, history, food, language

(01:18:28) tours to Australia, Linsey Pollak, Tunji Beier, Philip Griffin

(01:28:52) the pandemic, teaching online

(01:33:27) the importance of performing and why Kelly stopped studying dance

(01:40:42) the importance of performing for music students

(01:45:41) Labyrinth Musical Workshop opportunites to study in Crete