Here's What Happened When 15 Musicians Play in an Active Volcano

Last Thursday, 15 musicians gather together at a crater of an active volcano on a small island in the southern Aegean Sea for an improvisational site-specific performance. Inspired by the otherworldly surroundings, they played for ten and a half hours, lit only by the moon. The event was organized by six d.o.g.s, an Athens art space, and the Onassis Cultural Center, and the record that came out of this experience is titled “634 Minutes Inside a Volcano.” The musicians, who are mostly Greek and in their 20s and 30s, came from improvisational backgrounds like jazz, classical, avant-garde and electronic; many met for the first time during sound check. In addition to electric guitar, piano, clarinet and synthesizer, they played sample loops and traditional eastern Mediterranean instruments such as the oud and the kanonaki. Listen to a snippet of the impromptu performance below and check out a detailed report of what went down as well as how the musicians felt about the experience here.