Moscow
The Slovenian conductor Uroš Lajovic’s recent appearances with the Athens State Orchestra have made his return to the Greek capital a highly-anticipated event. The soloist in Shostakovich’s vibrant and youthful Second Piano Concerto: the up-and-coming pianist, Theodosia Dokou. The concerto is framed by symphonic works by Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev which were inspired by two of Shakespeare’s immortal masterpieces: The Tempest and Romeo and Juliet. The transcendent beauty of Shakespeare’s language is transformed into a music awash with passion and intensity.
Free introductory talk for ticket holders
Mariinsky Theatre Opera Gala
Saint Petersberg’s historic Mariinsky Theatre has been one of the world’s most prominent lyric theatres since its foundation. A selection of its finest performers will be singing extracts from famous operas under the direction of one of the Theatre’s regular conductors, the American maestro, Gavriel Heine, confirming once again the power and sensibility of Russian voices.
WE PRODUCTION
Composers as refugees
The refugee issue is topical yet again, affecting all our lives to a greater or lesser extent. The Athens State Orchestra seeks in its own way to raise our awareness of the sheer magnitude of the problem in this performance of three magnificent 20th-century symphonic works under the baton of the Estonian conductor, Mihkel Kütson. All three were written by composers who were forced to cut themselves off from their homes, but who managed to retain their creativity undiminished and write truly great works.
Free introductory talk for ticket holders
A happy coincidence
Leonidas Kavakos is a musician who needs no introduction. Having established himself as one of the world’s top violinist, he has for several years been extending his activities into conducting—a move which has met with considerable success. In this, his first concert on the podium of the Athens State Orchestra, he will be conducting exceptional symphonies by Schumann and Mozart respectively along with the latter’s Fifth Violin Concerto. May this concert mark the start of a long and fruitful collaboration.
Leipzig
The first regular concert of the season at the Athens Megaron Concert Hall is also the first concert in this year’s main thematic cycle, “Cities of Music”. Each of the concerts in the cycle will feature a programme which relates to a given musical centre in ways ranging from the obvious to the somewhat obscure. Our first stop is Leipzig, the birthplace of Wagner and the city in which Schumann spent much of his life and Beethoven’s nine symphonies were first played as a complete cycle in 1825-26.
Free introductory talk for ticket holders
BUIKA, the Daughter of Fire
Buika, the Daughter of Fire, on Tuesday, September 20 for a unique concert at Herodium.
She will be accompanied by the Athens State Orchestra, and three of her own musicians (guitar, bass and cajón). The internationally renowned maestro Toni Cuenca, awarded by the Academy of Music and Festival for his symphonic work, will direct the concert. Toni Cuenca has collaborated with Paco de Lucia, Miguel Rios and Jorge Pardo, the Istanbul Opera Orchestra and the Symphony Orchestra of Sofia and Barcelona.
Alain Lefèvre-Orestes Papaioannou
The first prize the promising Greek composer Orestes Papaioannou won in last year’s international "Dvorák" competition (Prague, 2015) clearly arouses expectations in regard to the première of his new symphonic work, Apophonisis. This is followed by the Second concerto for piano (1900-1901) by the Russian composer and piano virtuoso Sergei Rachmaninoff. The work marked the composer’s successful return to composing after three years of inactivity brought on by depression following the failure of his First Symphony. He dedicated the concerto to Dr Nicolai Dahl, his psychotherapist. The concerto is one of the most popular of all classical works and, given its irresistible melodies, emotional sincerity and sparkling virtuosity, it certainly deserves to be. On this occasion, it will be the top French-Canadian soloist Alain Lefèvre who accepts the challenge. After the intermission, Stefanos Tsialis leads the Athens State Orchestra in a performance of the Sixth Symphony by the Czech Romantic composer Antonín Dvorák. Written over just a few days in early autumn 1880, it was the composer’s first published symphony. Melodically, the work clearly reveals the influence of traditional Czech melodies, but its structural precision, textured orchestration and brilliantly developed thematic material all reflect the impact of Dvorák’s mentor, Johannes Brahms, and his musical universe.
Vladimir Ashkenazy - Dimitri Ashkenazy
For its third and final appearance at the Odeon of Herodes Atticus this summer, the Athens State Orchestra welcomes another of its star duos—two musicians who in this case share a famous name: Ashkenazy.
The celebrated conductor and pianist Vladimir Ashkenazy will be on the podium for the concert, which features his son, the distinguished clarinettist Dimitri Ashkenazy, as the soloist in Mozart's clarinet concerto.
The programme will open with Beethoven’s Prometheus Overture from The creatures of Prometheus, a rare piece of ballet music by the composer which was first performed in 1801 in Vienna. Then it’s time for the Mozart concerto. One of the most charming concertos in the Austrian classical repertoire, the work reveals a profound understanding of the clarinet’s virtuosic and expressive capabilities. The concert ends with Tchaikovsky’s ambitious and dramatic Fourth Symphony.
Federico Fellini—Nino Rota
Having chosen three star duos for the three concerts it will be giving this year in the context of the Athens Festival, the Athens State Orchestra dedicates the evening of July 5 to two legends of, respectively, film and film music: Federico Fellini and Nino Rota.
Their relationship, which might best be described as an ‘affinity’, would remain a fixture in three quarters of Fellini’s films—which is to say the duo collaborated on 18 cinematic and musical masterpieces including La Strada, Nights of Cabiria, La dolce vita, 8 1/2, Satyricon and Amarcord. That is what Hadzidakis meant when he wrote that Rota’s music and Fellini's cinema had been inseparable from the very start and that together “they had created one of the most courageous and magical moments in this world we live in”.
It is this sense of a world shared that the Athens State Orchestra seeks to convey in this concert in which, under the baton of Europe’s leading conductor of film music, Frank Strobel, it will perform Rota’s best-loved melodies accompanied on screen by the corresponding scenes from Fellini’s films.