Music from the New World (I)

This season’s new Athens State Orchestra concert cycle is entitled “Music of the New World” and features works from the American avant-garde along with works written on American soil by important European composers. In the first concert in the cycle, the multifaceted Canadian maestro Charles Olivieri-Munroe conducts American works of varying hues and styles ranging from MacDowell’s emblematic Second Piano Concerto, with Charalambos Angelopoulos at the keyboard, to Barber’s ever-popular Adagio.

19:45
Pre-concert talk, free for ticket holders


Celebrating the 200th anniversary since the birth of Richard Wagner

The artistic world created by the great German composer and poet, Richard Wagner, continues to exert an undimmed fascination on all those that enter it. Two famous preludes to his musical dramas are the perfect introduction to the First Act of Die Walküre (The Valkyrie), one of the most lyrical and emotionally-laden moments in his entire Ring Cycle. The lead roles are sung by three Wagnerians of international renown.

19:45
Pre-concert talk, free for ticket holders


Theme and variations

Theme and variations: a melody undergoing constant transformations, contracting or expanding and firing the composer’s imagination in original and exhilarating directions. Which is how Paganini’s theme gave rise to the sublime 18th variation in Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody, and how Elgar’s ‘enigmatic’ theme yielded the English composer’s sensual Nimrod variation. The Athens State Orchestra opens its new season with a series of imaginative musical metamorphoses performed under the baton of its artistic director, Vassilis Christopoulos.

19:45
Pre-concert talk, free for ticket holders


“Opening” of the Ancient Theatre of Messene

When DIAZOMA invited us to take part in the opening of Messene’s reconstructed Ancient Theatre, we were deeply moved and accepted with enthusiasm. On the evening, two internationally-renowned opera singers—the Rumanian soprano, Cellia Costea, and the Greek baritone, Dimitris Platanias—will perform famous arias and duets from the Italian opera, accompanied by the Athens State Orchestra under Vassilis Christopoulos in what promises to be a singular operatic treat in a truly magical setting.

Arias, duets and orchestral excerpts by Verdi, Puccini, Giordano etc.

Concert at the Athens Festival 2013 -second concert

The distinguished French conductor Pascal Rophé, who is much admired for his interpretations of 20th-century repertoire, leads the Athens State Orchestra in a delightful programme which includes two extremely well-known symphonic works by two of Hungary’s greatest composers: Zoltán Kodály and Béla Bartók. After the intermission, Ravel’s delicate orchestration reveals the magnificence and passion of one of the best-loved works of all time: Modest Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition.


From the darkness into the light

The Athens State Orchestra joins forces with 18ANO, the drug addiction unit of the Athens Psychiatric Hospital, for the International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking in a concert symbolically entitled “From the darkness into the light”. Two classical masterpieces –Beethoven’s Leonore Overture No. 3 and Mozart’s magnificent Jupiter Symphony, his forty-first and last-bookend Giovanni Bottesini’s Concerto for Double Bass, in which Angelos Repapis, our Orchestra’s lead double bassist, plays the solo part. The concert will be conducted by Vassilis Christopoulos.


Concert at Salamina

What does the celebratory overture to the celebrated operetta Candide by the great conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein have in common with Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue for piano and orchestra, Darius Milhaut’s Ox on the Roof (based on traditional Brazilian melodies), Christos Papageorgiou’s Pyrrichios, and the four dances from the ballet Estancia by the Argentinean composer, Albert Ginastera? What else, if not their irresistible rhythmic energy and alluring melodies! Joined by Bas Wiegers on the podium and Apostolos Palios at the piano, the Athens State Orchestra performs a technically-demanding programme which packs an emotional punch.


Day of Music 2013

Although every day is filled with music for us at the Athens State Orchestra, how could we pass up the first-class opportunity Music Day presents to fill the lives of others with music, too! In the grounds of  Megaron – the Athens Concert Hall, the up-and-coming Dutch conductor Bas Wiegers will lead the Orchestra in some of the most enchanting works of the 20th-century repertoire. In this relaxed and informal al fresco atmosphere, the works, in which serious music is combined with jazz influences and Brazilian dance tunes, are sure to get the audience to their feet.


Concert at the Athens Festival 2013

In this, the bicentenary of the birth of Giuseppe Verdi, the great Italian composer’s vast and superb operatic oeuvre is being honoured all over the world with the splendour it deserves. The Athens State Orchestra will play its part in the celebrations by performing the celebrated and emotionally-laden Requiem which Verdi wrote in memory of the eminent Italian man of letters, Alessandro Manzoni. Part of this year’s Athens Festival, the performance, for which the Orchestra will be joined by distinguished singers and no fewer than three choruses, will be conducted by Vassilis Christopoulos.


Concert at Kalavryta

The Athens State Orchestra’s summer concert tour begins this year in Kalavryta. The programme begins with a symphonic landmark of post-war Modernism: Phoenix Music by Greece’s great avant-garde composer, Jani Christou. This will be followed by two masterpieces by Beethoven: the Third Piano Concerto, with Thanasis Apostolopoulos at the keyboard, and the spellbinding Seventh Symphony, which Wagner famously described as the “apotheosis of the dance”.