Description:
The Cypriot Fiddler is a long-term ethnographic research project led by Dr Nicoletta Demetriou, documenting the life stories of traditional professional musicians from Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities. Combining ethnomusicology, oral and cultural history, and visual anthropology, the project preserves the memories, musical practices, dialects and personal narratives of a professional group that has largely disappeared. Originating in fieldwork undertaken in 2005–2006, the research was formally developed between 2012 and 2022, initially based at the Oxford Centre for Life Writing, Wolfson College, University of Oxford. Its distinctive bottom-up methodology allows musicians to recount their experiences in their own words, preserving forms of oral storytelling and specialised musical vocabulary associated with weddings, religious festivals and community celebrations in twentieth-century Cyprus. The project resulted in a documentary film, an open-access website and the book The Cypriot Fiddler: The Oral History of a Professional Class in the Twentieth Century, published in Greek by Psifides in November 2022. The book combines explanatory writing in standard Greek with musicians' testimonies in Cypriot Greek. Public events, lectures and musical gatherings brought together audiences from both communities, while the Cyprus Music Archive provides a platform for preserving and sharing the research material. Recognised with an Award and Grand Prix at the European Heritage Awards 2026, the project demonstrates how sustained ethnographic research can safeguard intangible cultural heritage, strengthen cross-community understanding and make traditional musical knowledge accessible to future generations.