Home› Europe›Southern Europe›Cyprus
Music of Cyprus
Flamenco and fado, Sardinian cantu a tenore, Neapolitan song, tarantella and pizzica, Corsican paghjella, Greek rebetiko and island nisiotika.
Sung and searched in Greek, Turkish. The YouTube button above can run your search in that language.
A brief history
History
Cyprus changed hands numerous times prior to the medieval era, and was an important outpost of Christianity and Western European civilization during the Crusades. The island's peak as a cultural capital of Europe occurred from 1359 to 1432. During that peak, Pierre I de Lusignan made a three-year tour on Europe, bringing with him an entourage of musicians that impressed Charles V in Rheims so much that he donated 80 francs in gold to them. On his return to Cyprus, Pierre I brought with him the French Ars Nova and, later, the Ars Subtilior. French musicians became well established in Cyprus, and the city of Nicosia became a capital of the Ars Subtilior style. Janus I de Lusignan saw Cypriot music evolve into its own variety of music. His daughter, Anne de Lusignan, brought a manuscript after her marriage to Louis, Count of Geneva, which contained 159 folios with over two hundred polyphonic compositions, both sacred and secular. The manuscript is now a part of the collection of the National Library of Turin.
Popular music
Recent and current music scenes
Cypriot Greek traditional song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHRFRRjcLwU Traditional music on Cyprus is similar to the traditional music of Greece and includes dances like the tatsia, sousta, syrtos, ballos, zeibekiko, karotseris, sinalik, chiftetteli, arabkyes, mandra dance and the karsilama suites. Note that unlike Greece and Turkey, there are suites of five karsilama dances, different for men and women some of them other than the standard 9/8 rhythm. The fifth karsilama dance is also known as ballos for both men's and women's suites. Traditional Cypriot music – similar to Greek and Turkish traditional music – is modal, based on the musical systems of the Byzantine echos / Turkish makam. Both Greek and Turkish Cypriots use the violin as the main solo instrument, accompanied by the lute. The tamboutsia and the pithkiavlin are also used.
Read the full article: Music of Cyprus Text under CC BY-SA 4.0
Playing now
What Cyprus is listening to in 2026
Articles
No articles for Cyprus yet. Save a Markdown file to content/articles/ with
country: Cyprus in its front matter.
Live radio
Radio from Cyprus
Music only, no news or talk. Stations that play the local tradition come first, then the most listened. They play in the corner of the page.
Station directory by Radio Browser Streams come from each station's own server.