Bio

Enter, Chairman!

“I am,” George Sapounidis asserts, “probably the only Greek singer who performs in Chinese.”

Probably? All Canadian Greek-Chinese fusion specialists, please step forward. Right, then, George. Uniqueness, achieved.

In a world of over 7 billion people, that's no small achievement. Moreover, it is an achievement that has earned this affable artist acclaim, respect and admiration in the ancient land that is home to over 1 billion of those worldly denizens. In that land, Sapounidis has been embraced as a cross-cultural musical trailblazer, known affectionately as Chairman George.

As Chairman George, a moniker adopted from the title of an award-winning 2005 documentary all about the artist and his quest for Olympic glory of a sort, this Greek- Canadian singer, songwriter, bandleader and bouzouki player has turned an unlikely dream into reality. Still viewed as something of a curiosity at home, the Ottawa-based performer has performed to sold-out audiences over the course of 30 tours of China. He has done so by reimagining traditional material ranging from Canada‟s storied Red River Valley to Greek and Chinese folk songs, as a spirited mix of disarming ballads and souped-up rockers sung in Mandarin.

Perhaps it shouldn't work. But in the hands of the talented Chairman and his accomplished five-piece band, as Richard Thornley enthused in the folk, roots and world music magazine Penguin Eggs: “It hangs together beautifully, has a huge heart and is one of the truest and most creative musical fusions that I have ever heard. Amazing stuff!”

Not convinced?

Writing of George From Athens to Beijing, soundtrack to the CTV and BBC broadcast documentary from which George acquired his Chairman title, the influential American folk music bible Sing Out! praised the artist's musical vision. “That he's good is beyond question,” the magazine confirmed.

Factor in two Canadian Folk Music Awards nominations for Best World Music Artist, 150-plus international television appearances – many to tens of millions of viewers – and praise from dignitaries, promoters and fans around the world, and Chairman George's status as the world's foremost Greek singer performing in Chinese can hardly be challenged.

Not bad for a veteran musician born and raised in Canada, of Greek but not Chinese descent. His sincere desire to bring people together through music is born of a genuine fascination with and understanding of multiple languages and cultures.

The world, one might say, needs more Chairman George.

True, the Chairman's musical mash might at first strike the unsuspecting initiate as the stuff of lunacy. After all, we're not talking mere jazz-blues or country-rock fusion here. Yet, to hear the man alight at the memory of his arrival in China in 2000 for his first concerts in the land he so admires, is to begin to see the method behind such apparent madness.

“I remember breaking through the skies and hearing, 'Ladies and gentlemen we're now flying over mainland China,'” he recalls with clear reverence. “I peered through the clouds and saw below me, this ancient land. It was – what's the Greek word - a Eureka moment. I was over this 5,000-year-old land, which is parallel in ancient culture to Greece. It was magical, that moment.”

Two of the oldest of Old World lands, their cultures mashed in glorious musical fashion by an enthusiastic and studied musician from one of the newest of the New. In the hands of Chairman George, it seems not only natural, but inevitable: Greek songs performed in Mandarin, fresh sounds in a cluttered global cultural landscape.

Welcome to the new ancient land of Chairman George. You have heard nothing like this before. No 'probably' about it.