Phos Duo was formed in 2008 by Antonis Ladopoulos & Sami Amiris.
The need for musical exploration combined with the intimacy and freedom of expression unique to the Duo setting, led both into creating the Phos Duo project.
“Phos” is the Greek word for “Light” and the metaphor in the duo’s name was indeed intended.
Paul Klee once wrote: “Light and the rational forms are locked in combat; light sets them into motion, bends what is straight, makes parallels oval, inscribes circles in the intervals, makes the intervals active”.
Likewise, the music of Phos Duo possesses a transparent quality to it, letting all the minute nuances come forward. There is also an inquisitive character to it, always analyzing and decomposing the music just as light does to material objects in random ways. Then, through improvisation, harmony and rhythm are put back together again in a slow but gradual process giving the musical form its original contour.
It’s a complex soundscape, creating images sometimes reminiscent of 20th Century Concert Music, while at other times hard driving Bop rhythms change the mood in unpredictable ways.
Almost all of the music performed by the Duo is original.
Since 2008 Phos Duo has given many Concerts in Theaters, Conservatories and University Halls.
Their first CD entitled “Phos” was released and included in the September 2012 issue of Jazz&Tzaz Magazine (Greece’s premier monthly Jazz Magazine) along with an extensive interview of Antonis Ladopoulos and Sami Amiris.
The Duo’s second CD entitled “Expanded Matrix” was released in October of 2016 and has already received a rave review at “Jazz in Europe” online.
The “Phos” project remains for both Antonis Ladopoulos and Sami Amiris an intuitive process of creativity and exploration.