Clarinet virtuoso Petros-Loukas Chalkias passes away

Born in 1934 in Delvinaki, Ioannina, Petros-Loukas Chalkias grew up in a family deeply rooted in the musical tradition of Epirus. The clarinet expressed his soul, and from a young age, he stood out for his unique virtuosity and unmatched sound. He did not limit himself to performing traditional music; he renewed it, enriched it, and made it speak to the hearts of his audience.

In the USA

In 1960, Chalkias found himself in the USA. There he had a meeting with Louis Armstrong and Benny Goodman - The "hymns" by Bill Clinton.

Petroloukas Chalkias, who passed away hours ago at the age of 91, went to the USA in 1960, at the age of 26, with the intention of releasing an album. He went for a short time but stayed there for almost 20 years - he returned to Greece in 1980.

In one of the first shops he worked, Chalkias had the good fortune to meet the great jazz musicians Benny Goodman and Louis Armstrong.

The clarinet virtuoso had said about that time:

"When I was in America, I went to get a straw and they were American musicians. I was playing at the shop where Chiotis was with Mary Linda and I went to get a reed for the clarinet and I was trying it out. The Americans gathered but I didn't know what they were saying. They go to Benny Goodman and say, if you hear a clarinet. "Who is he, where is he," he told them. "He's a new kid," they say. "He's elusive." And he really comes with Louis Armstrong to the shop. I didn't know them. I was playing standing up. And they say to the waiter, can we have a little bit of the clarinet? I go there. "Benny Goodman, I'm very happy," he says. "Petros Chalkias," I say. Then Armstrong asked me: "Do you speak English?" "I don't speak," I say. They tell the waiter, "wait a minute." And they ask me: "I saw him playing standing up, he didn't have a music stand. Did he learn it by heart?" "We are traditionalists," I answer. "We don't write or read music, but whatever we put into the pieces, we keep in our minds and traditional Greek music is played like that." Goodman says to me: Did you hear from us and make it like that? Armstrong was nudging him. I say to the waiter: Tell him we were born first, they heard it from us."

His close relationship with Papoulias and Bill Clinton
Speaking years ago to the newspaper “Epiroticos Agon”, Chalkias also remembered what his friend, Karolos Papoulias, had told him:

“In later years, when Bill Clinton came to Greece, the then Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis gave him some CDs, among them one of mine, which the President of the Republic Karolos Papoulias had given him. Papoulias and I had known each other since we were little children, we were from close by villages, he was originally from Pogoniani. He was a fan of folk music. When he heard the CD, Clinton was impressed because he himself played the saxophone. As Karolos Papoulias later told me, Clinton called him and told him that he learned about my 20-year presence in America and described me as a "citizen of the world" because of the music I play."