Impressionistic Echoes
The Athens String Quartet is one of Greece’s most dynamic chamber music ensembles. In this concert, the musicians will be showcasing the drive, light and shade, hues, textures and lyricism of two milestones in the history of French music: the impressionistic quartets by Debussy and Ravel. The concert is in honour of the eightieth anniversary of the death of Maurice Ravel.
Apollon Grammatikopoulos, violin
Panagiotis Tziotis, violin
Paris Anastasiadis, viola
Isidoros Sideris, cello
Easter Concert 2017
The concert presents a project of documenta 14`s artitsts Ross Birrell and David Harding, based on the Third Symphony, known also as «Symphony of Sorrowful Songs» from the important Polish composer, Henryk Górecki and will be given with the collaboration of members of the Syrian Expat Philharmonic Orchestra (SEPO), under the artistic direction of its founder, Raed Jazbeh. The Symphony of Sorrowful Songs is the Polish composer’s best-known work. It is a poignant lament for orchestra and soprano in three movements, each focusing on the sense of hopelessness, separation, and loss experienced by parents and children as a consequence of war.
The concert will start with "Fugue", a composition for solo violin by Syrian violinist and composer, Ali Moraly, in collaboration with Ross Birrell, Fugue is inspired by Paul Celan’s powerful and dark response to the Holocaust in the poem Death Fugue (1948) The word “fugue” is derived from the Latin “fugere”, “to flee” and the Greek «fe???» from which also stems the word “refugee”.
Free introductory talk for ticket holders
Dresden
Schumann and Wagner spent a number of years in Dresden, and the former’s Piano Concerto received its première in the city; tonight, the solo part is played by the excellent Greek pianist, Domna Evnouhidou. Moreover, it was at the Dresden opera house that many of Strauss’s operas were first performed; the composer’s operatic output is represented tonight by Don Juan. Finally, conducted by the dynamic Indonesian maestro Adrian Prabava, the Athens State Orchestra will perform Schumann’s wonderful Manfred overture in honour of the bicentennial of the publication of Lord Byron’s poem.
Free introductory talk for ticket holders
Breaths, strings and heroes of the ancient legend
When the Muses—daughters of Zeus and patrons of the arts—bestow their inspiration on a composer, no matter the era or the place, the recipient will return to the inexhaustible wellspring of ancient Greek myth almost as a matter of course. The use of harp and flute, two instruments as archaic as they are enchanting which seem almost mystically linked to mythology, would appear to be just as automatic.
Cellibitum
After many years working together within the Orchestra, the Athens State Orchestra’s cellists have decided to express themselves collectively around their favourite instrument. The works in the concert (Villa-Lobos, Samuel Barber, Prokofiev, Julius Klengel at al.), some of them written for cello ensemble and others transcriptions, spur them on to explore the limitless potential of the cello and to treat the audience to an evening dedicated to the unique timbre of the cello ten times over!
Giannis Tsitselikis
Asterios Pouftis
Marina Kislitsina
Nikos Kotzias
Christina Koutrou
Vania Papadimitriou
Ivi Papathanasiou
Isidoros Sideris
Olga Stratigopoulou
Dimitris Travlos
19:30
Free Museum tour
Mahler Cycle IV
The Athens State Orchestra’s ambitious plan to perform all of Gustav Mahler’s symphonies under the baton of Stefanos Tsialis kicked off last year and continues this season with the Sixth Symphony. No, the Sixth is not just another symphony by the Austrian composer; the breadth of its meanings, its free-flowing narrativity, immersive expressive power, conflicting sensitivity and hardness are just some of the elements that make Mahler's Sixth an irresistible journey along the innermost paths of the human soul.
Free introductory talk for ticket holders
Carnival
In the midst of Carnival, the Athens State Orchestra and the Athens Megaron Concert Hall invite music-lovers young and old to a carnival of animals and other fantastic creatures! The musical heroes of Saint-Saëns and Dukas take over the stage of the Christos Lambrakis Hall and invite the audience to enter a world of fantasy and revel in a series of musical disguises.
Music for viola and piano
Three of the most important composers of German Romanticism, Schumann, Schubert and Brahms, bring viola and piano together on an equal footing in works universally acknowledged as central to the repertoire of both instruments.
Novel
Following in the wake of the successful staging of the Murderess, the opera by the great Greek composer George Koumentakis, the première of the Murderess Suite is sure to be an important musical event. The adventures of another archetypal fictional hero, Taras Bulba, provided the inspiration for Janácek’s exciting rhapsody. Both works are conducted by the eminent maestro, Loukas Karytinos, under whose baton Christina Pantelidou will grant us a rare opportunity to enjoy the cor anglais in a solo role.
Free introductory talk for ticket holders
Music with temperament
The internationally-fêted maestro Frank Beermann at the helm of the Athens State Orchestra in a fascinatingly imaginative symphonic programme. We rarely have the opportunity to enjoy the Danish composer Carl Nielsen's Second Symphony, a work whose tempestuous mood changes and relentless intensity are further accentuated here by being paired with Respighi’s famous symphonic poem describing the pines in various locations around the Eternal City. The programme is rounded off with a performance of Ravel’s refined Piano Concerto by Alexia Mouza, the fiery up-and-coming soloist.
Free introductory talk for ticket holders