Clio Karabelias

Born in Paris from a Greek family, in a cosmopolitan atmosphere, 

Clio inherited much love for the arts, for ancient cultures, and 

oriental melodies. As she was in her final course of classical harp 

studies in Paris, she discovered improvisation, thanks to her 

teacher Helene Breschand. The revolution which started then 

took her away from the pure classical music, and oriented her not 

only towards contemporary improvised music and free jazz, but 

also towards traditional music. 

Her search for her own style and improvisation on the Harp drove her towards music of oral tradition like 

the Turkish music that she learned with her Master Talip Ozkan. and continued to enrich her  musical 

abilities especially on improvisation by meeting several interesting musicians of the world music scene 

Clio’s musical journey took a remarkable turn when she started interacting with the Indian musicians. The 

richness of improvisation, the jumping rhythms fascinated her and touched her like the Greek or Turkish 

would do… 

Clio spent few years in the Indian continent, where she developed slowly her understanding of the Indian 

melodic and rhythmic systems. She started learning  dhrupad from Sri. Uday Bhawalkar to amalgamate the 

teachings with her compositional ideas on her instrument. 

Clio has played for theater and has played for several world 

music festivals in France, and Europe, alone or with the 

world music band Srishtii that she cerated w along with sitar 

player Hindol Deb. She played for jazz man Magic Malik in 

La Cigale in Paris. 

In India, she has performed at the Fireflies Festival and 

French Cultural Centers in India, She has also toured with 

her world music band Srishtii for the Suvarna Karnataka and 

recorded for the indian composer AR Rahman in Madras. 

She is now concentrating on her solo carreer in India, develloping a repertory inspired from the Indian and 

greek ideoms. She has also performed with world musicians like Sivamani, Talvin Singh and more recently 

with the World Music band VRavi in Bombay.

Clio develops a style and a sound  in her compositions and improvisations which sublimates the classical 

Harp. In the confluence of free jazz, classical contemporary music and oriental music, she incorporate all 

her influences a unique melodicorythmical language. She plays on electric Celtic harp (Camac) and Pedal 

Harp (Budin Pandora) but always prefers to play on her concert Harp Lyon and Healy, wich is unfortunatly 

difficult to transport around the world.