2024 12 13 The Christmas Nutcracker
On the eve of the Christmas holidays, the music from Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite is so closely linked in our minds to the great feast of Christianity, it could hardly be absent from our concerts. The evergreen melodiousness and delicacy of the work is highlighted by the energetic German maestro Cornelia von Kerssenbrock, who regularly appears on the podiums of major orchestras and opera houses in Europe, Asia and America. Performing alongside her, the Greek-Japanese violinist Noé Inui, an inspired and internationally-celebrated poet of the violin, takes on the "Parthenon" of the violin repertoire: Beethoven's unique Violin Concerto—which, apart from being the only work of this type the composer wrote, is also of singular value.
2024 12 06 West Side Story Suite EN
The prominence of German, French and Russian music in concert programmes often leads us to ignore—or at least underestimate—the worth of music from the Anglo-Saxon sphere. This is precisely the tendency this concert sets out to correct, and in the most convincing manner possible, by presenting three masterpieces by Edward Elgar, an Englishman, and the Americans Leonard Bernstein and John Adams. Our thriving musicians, the maestro Michalis Economou and pianist Stefanos Nasos perform three works written in three different centuries: the Enigma Variations (from the 19th century) is the romantic masterpiece with which Elgar conquered the world, West Side Story (20th) spoke to the souls of audiences everywhere by interweaving serious music into the format of the musical, while John Adams' Concerto (21st) proves that classical forms still have the power to electrify audiences today.
2024 11 29 Pepe Romero & Christoph Eschenbach
The Spaniard Pepe Romero is one of the most recognizable and influential ambassadors of the classical guitar, and one of those gifted artists who are able to communicate the most elevated aspects of their art to the simple man in a direct and profound way. His contributions as a performer, a recording artist and a teacher are invaluable, while his performance of the Conceirto Aranjuez, a truly iconic cornerstone of the guitar repertoire, inevitably attracts interest. As, indeed, does the new work which the outstanding composer and pianist Achilleas Gouastor has written in honour of Christoph Eschenbach, who will be conducting tonight's concert. The legendary maestro has consistently shown his appreciation for the Athens State Orchestra—an appreciation the ASO continues to reciprocate, as does our audience, through its steadfast devotion to his always-profound interpretive approaches.
2024 11 22 Brahms featuring Gil Shaham
It would not be an exaggeration to describe the young English maestro Finnegan Downie Dear's 2023 debut with the ASO as truly revelatory, both for the musicians who threw themselves so willingly behind his vision and for our audience who rewarded his efforts with rapturous applause—and rightly so! Which is to say his return this year, to conduct a programme that could not be more Romantic if it tried, with all the technical demands and emotional extremes that entails, was fully merited. The American violinist Gil Shaham hardly needs an introduction: one of the greatest violinists of our time, he has treated classical music lovers to landmark performances of the great works in the repertoire, the greatest of which surely include Johannes Brahms' magnificent Violin Concerto.
2024 11 08 Brahms' second symphony
The young French maestro Lionel Bringuier made a name for himself on the European serious music scene as musical director of Zurich's celebrated Tonhalle Orchestra, 2014-18, and remains ever more sought after on the podium of major orchestras and opera houses around the world. For his much-anticipated second collaboration with the Athens State Orchestra, he will be conducting their performance of Brahms' joyful and deeply emotional second symphony. The soloist, Andreas Papanikolaou, never fails to move his audience with performances that combine sensitivity with virtuosic fireworks—an ability that undoubtedly makes him one of the true treasures of the Greek serious music scene. Those who have not yet heard him play owe it to themselves to take this opportunity to do so, and the same goes for the impressive Concerto he will be performing!
2024 10 04 Opera Gala, Verdi - Puccini
Two leading Greek soloists who have been earning accolades for over twenty years on the stages of the world's greatest opera houses—the soprano Alexia Voulgaridou and the baritone Aris Argiris, friends and collaborators since they studied together under the great Daphne Evangelatos—join forces at the Megaron for a unique concert.
With the distinguished Miltos Logiadis on the Athens State Orchestra podium, the two lyric artists perform popular scenes and arias from operas by Verdi and Puccini, including Tosca's iconic second act.
The artists, along with the conductor and musicians of the Athens State Orchestra, will be donating their fees to the Maria Callas Scholarships, an organization with which they are closely associated and which was founded 60 years ago by Maria Callas herself to support young and talented Greek singers.
2024 10 18 Leonskaja gets the new season underway
Beethoven and Schumann number among those composers whose great works spirit us back to the wellspring of musical beauty and breathe new life into the response of every musician and philosopher to the eternal question: "Why is Music a supreme expression of the human spirit?". Landmarks in the world repertoire like Beethoven's dramatic Third Piano Concerto and Schumann's melodically fresh "Spring" Symphony, along with the atmospheric overture to Weber's opera Oberon, are ideal vehicles for ensuring a truly glorious start to the new artistic season—all the more so when they are performed by the brilliant and legendary Georgian piano virtuoso, Elisabeth Leonskaja, and conducted by the celebrated and highly experienced maestro and artistic director of the Athens State Orchestra, Lukas Karytinos!
2024 07 12 Athens Festival
Thanks to an incendiary combination of talent, virtuosity, expressiveness and brilliance, the piano superstar Alexei Volodin is graced with the ability to captivate audiences wherever he performs, tackling the most demanding works in the piano repertoire and offering up genuinely passionate and inspired interpretations. This year, we welcome him to the Odeon of Herodes Atticus to perform what is perhaps the most popular piano concerto of all time: Tchaikovsky's First. Having accompanied him on this journey into the Romantic composer's melodic universe, the Athens State Orchestra and renowned conductor Lukas Karytinos will then transform themselves into... soloists for Bella Bartók's celebrated Concerto for Orchestra. By far the most impressive and beloved symphonic work by the ground-breaking Hungarian composer, this rhythmic work exudes a near frenzied vitality that possesses audiences with the desire to dance! The concert promises to be enormously exciting and to raise the musical temperature with works that literally take one’s breath away!
2024 06 28 Athens Festival
Outstanding internationally renowned opera singers join forces with the ASO under the experienced baton of the renowned Estonian-born American conductor Neeme Järvi to perform Ludwig van Beethoven's magnificent Ninth Symphony for the audience in the Herodes Atticus theatre. A supreme achievement of the human spirit, this immortal symphonic masterpiece changed the course of symphonic music more than any other. Still more importantly, as an incomparable testament to beauty and truth, it is the clearest and most moving musical expression of humanism, and a work that symbolizes Man's need to hope and embrace the highest ideals of freedom, dignity and brotherhood of nations.