Category Archives: Athens Concert Hall

Athens Concert Hall

Chick Corea and Gary Burton at the Athens Concert Hall

The Athens Concert Hall presents them Chick Corea and Gary Burton, a collaboration that jazz fans are looking forward to. The concert will take place on 15 Of March 2012 in the context of the Bridges series.

Chick Corea

If one considers the volume of his last discography 40 years, can not doubt that Chick Korea is one of the most productive composers of our time. From avant-garde to bebop, from children's songs to the avant-garde, from fusion to classical music, Chick Korea always maintains high quality standards in its work.

Has won 14 Grammy, while he was a candidate at least 50 times. The 2005 was awarded the Ruhr Prize in Germany (an award first given to a jazz pianist) and 2006 was named "New Jazz Master" which is the biggest distinction for jazz in the US.

Gary Burton

He was born and raised in Indiana. Self-taught in vibraphone, the genius musician Gary Burton 1971 became a professor at Berkeley College of Music in Boston (in percussion and improvisation), the 1985 was appointed Rector, the 1989 he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the same College and 1996 appointed Vice President.

He won his first Grammy for his album Alone at Last (solo vibraphone) recorded at the Montreux Festival in 1971. Many other Grammy Awards followed (several from his collaboration with Korea) and was nominated for the same award 14 times.

He has a long and deep professional personal relationship with Chick Korea. Beyond their recordings, give many concerts as duos in America and Europe.

Chick Corea piano
Gary Burton βιμπράφωνο

The series Bridges is directed by Dimitris Maragopoulos

"One of the most popular collaborations in the field of jazz"
"Wonderful dynamic balance"
Los Angeles Times


Source : culturenow.gr

Athens Concert Hall

Martha Argerich: A living legend of the piano at the Athens Concert Hall

Undoubtedly dominant among the great pianists of the 20th century and one of the most shocking performers of recent...
50 years, η Μάρθα Άργκεριχ, she has the world at her feet and the piano at her command: turns it into an eerie cascade of colors, she has a disarmingly carnal and tender relationship with him and her sound combines mysterious clarity,  rhythmic intensity and spontaneity that is riveting.

Martha Argerich comes to Athens with the musical "family" she has created for years, with members of the great star soloists, accomplished performers, but also young musicians who have stood out. Misha Maisky (cello), Steven Kovacevic (piano), Yuri Basmet (viola and conducting), Reno Capyson and Lia Petrova (violin), Dora Bakopoulou, Akane Sakai, Lily Maisky, Alexander Mogilevsky, Julia Zaikina (piano), Alexandros Kapelis (piano), Takis Kapogiannis (contrabass), Sergey Nakariakov (trumpet), Dimitris Desyllas and Andreas Farmakis(crust), participate and collaborate with Argerich in three concerts with music from the 18th century, in the 19th and 20th centuries. The camera, Orchestra of the Friends of Music conducted by Yuri Basmet on the first day and Gerard Corsten on the following two.

The three-day program includes:

works of Saint-Saëns (Septet for piano, trumpet, two violins, viola, cello and double bass, work 65), Schumann(Quintet for piano and strings, work 44), Mozart (Sinfonia Concertante for violin, viola and orchestra in E flat major K364) and Shostakovich (Concerto no. 1 for piano and trumpet, work 35) on Saturday 10/3, Mozart(Andante & Variations for piano four hands, K501 and Piano Concerto in B flat major, KV 456)), Ravel ('My mother the goose' for four hands), Shostakovich(Concertino for two pianos, work 94), Schumann(Fantasy pieces, work 73), Kabalevsky(Concerto for piano and orchestra no.4, work 99(of Prague) and Haydn(Cello Concerto No.1 in C major Hob.VIIb.1) on Sunday 11/3 and Stravinsky (The Rite of Spring for four pianos and two percussion instruments) and Bach(Concerto for two pianos and orchestra BWV 1060, Concerto for three pianos and orchestra, BWV 1064 and Concerto for Four Pianos and Orchestra BWV1065 on Monday 12/3.

Great sponsor of Camerata, Orchestra of Friends of Music for the period 2011-2013 is the Alexandros S. Charitable Foundation. Onassis.

Argerich resides on the high peaks of the world of virtuosos. Her fans are running out of superlatives to talk about her, her competitors turn into fanatical fans and wait patiently outside her dressing rooms. In her concerts, one sees scenes from other places and times: respectable gentlemen running down the aisles with bouquets in hand, famous musicians to applaud wildly from their stands, choleric critics to surrender with awkward smiles.

Argerich has qualities that are rarely combined in one person: pianist with unimaginable technical agility, charismatic woman with an enigmatic life, unassuming performer whose mother tongue is music and that's what makes her stand out. There are many great pianists who do wonders, but few have mastered that uninhibited naturalness in expression that allows them to inhabit the music rather than perform it.

Born in Buenos Aires, made her first appearance in 5 of years and up to 16 it had won her first prizes in major European competitions. At first he followed the usual international career, but as it matured it turned into a universe, to a model and "legislator", unpredictable, generous, indomitable, with a volcanic temperament and surprising attitudes by the conventional standards of the world of great performers. "A wonderful painting without a frame", as Daniel Barenboim says about her.

Martha Argerich's mature identity emerged from a paradoxical combination: indifference to reputation, money and career and an excruciating loneliness she feels when she is alone on stage. On this ground she created institutions to collaborate with her distinguished colleagues, to support and highlight young musicians and build musical "families".

With her signature it is made by 2002 το Martha Argerich Project, which lasts 3 weeks, as part of the Lugano Festival, where the "family" gathers every year with its permanent and new members and in Buenos Aires, from 1999, the Martha Argerich International Competition with herself as the president of the jury. From the same year, the Martha Argerich Music Festival takes place in southern Japan and in Lucerne, Switzerland, in collaboration with Claudio Abado, the piano days and workshops for the promotion of new pianists.

Like other legendary performers – Pablo Casals, Vladimir Horowitz- Argerich never got over stage fright. "There are times when I have terrible panic attacks, the most incredible things pass through my mind, a full hall, it's scary. My knees are shaking, i have chills, I feel like I'm going to collapse", she confessed in the excellent portrait made of her by the French director Georges Casot, the 2002 and is released on DVD by the Medici Arts company.

That is why her solo recitals are rare,  that's why she often hides behind her rich and thick hair on stage and that's why she "converses" with the composers when she plays and isolates herself in the dialogue between them: “I prefer not to joke with Schumann, but i think he likes me. With Chopin it is not always easy, he's probably a little jealous of me. Prokofiev loves me very much, he never sets traps for me".

With a shock began her relationship with the piano: it was 6 years old and her mother took her to the Colon Theater in Buenos Aires, in the piano concerto no. 4 by Beethoven with Claudio Arau, "I had fallen asleep and suddenly I heard the trills in the second part, I shuddered, an electric shock went through me, I refuse to play this concerto, I'm afraid what will happen, it's so important to me".

In 9 of, before playing a Mozart concerto, he knelt down and thought: “if I'm wrong on a note, i will die". Perfectionism has followed her ever since. "I always doubt it, I'm always unsure, i'm looking. If one is too satisfied or abandoned to the routine, it's a disaster".

Misha Maisky, who has been working with her since 2002 in Lugano he says that “working with Martha Argerich is like life: it is not easy, she can be very unpredictable and very irritating. But it is what,what more wonderful thing can happen to you. She is unbelievably gifted, to an almost desperate extent".

And the American critic, Alex Ross notes that in Argerich's performances one gets the feeling, "how the pianist abandons the idea of ​​a grand performance and is as if playing for herself and slowly emerges a rare performance. It saves many composers from the usual excesses of virtuosos and restores their essence, makes them sound new, contemporaries, with bold tones. The way the piano responds to Argerich's touch is a natural phenomenon that defies interpretation, it is like the surface, a revelation".

Source : culturenow.gr

Athens Concert Hall

Sanades and Word of Mouth at the Athens Concert Hall

The distinctive polyphonic girl group and the distinguished duo of Greek beatboxers collaborate on a new a capella music
show that explores the limits of the human voice through unpredictable arrangements of songs from around the world (from Tsitsani to Shakira and from Kurt Weill and Cohen to Rage Against the Machine)

The polyphonic female group Sanades and the human beatbox duo Word of Mouth, two new Greek groups with different musical origins but (public) trademark the "superplane" of the voice (and the microphone) their, capable of overpowering any musical instrument and contending with any genre of music, soundly invade the Concert Hall for an unexpected a capella performance that will take place on Saturday 3 Of March, at 9 in the evening in the Banquet Hall.

A project representative of their three-year collaboration, with a renewed repertoire and plenty of humor, with experiments of their own compositions and arrangements of songs from all over the world: Greek and foreign, traditional and modern, classical and rock, from Tsitsani to Shakira and from Kurt Weill and Cohen to Rage Against The Machine and Phoebo Delivoria. True to their goal of exploring the limits of the human voice, Sanades (Look at Kurtis, Maria Kotti, Sophia Sarri, Mariastella Tzanoudaki) and Word of Mouth (The Boy Dad, bitman) create once again a sound universe of their own that contracts and expands, condensing the polyphonic tradition, modern experimentation and hip hop culture. Aiming for audience participation in an original music game where anything is possible…

The show - directed by Kellys Karahaliou - is part of the "New Trends - New Creators" Section of the Bridges Series directed by Dimitris Maragopoulos.

The a cappella – beatbox project των Σανάδων και των Word of Mouth βγάζει τον ήχο που μια ορχήστρα, μερικά drum machine, scratches και μια γυναικεία χορωδία μπορούν να παράγουν στο σύνολό τους, χωρίς όμως τη χρήση μουσικών οργάνων! Except for the human voice.

Mata Kurtis, Maria Kotti, Sofia Sarri and Mariastella Tzanoudaki, four singers introduced to polyphonic traditional culture, and El Pap Chico and Bitman, οι πιο γνωστοί εκπρόσωποι του human beatbox στην Ελλάδα – της τέχνης αναπαραγωγής ρυθμών και μελωδιών με τη χρήση μόνο του ανθρώπινου στόματος – join forces once again for a show "musically uncomplicated and scenically entertaining" where beatboxing sounds natural and effortless over traditional songs of Greece and the Balkans (όπως στο θρακιώτικο παραδοσιακό τραγούδια «Αλεξανδρής», στο παραδοσιακό της Δράμας «Μαύρο Γεράκι», ένα χανιώτικο Συρτό πάνω σε στίχους κρητικών μαντινάδων αλλά και της Μαρίας Κώτη, in Bulgarian "Zora se a zazorila" and "Izgrejala jasna zvezda"), in African American religious songs («Down to the river to pray»), or Mexican traditional ("The Llorona") but also well-known rebetika («Ο Καϊξής» των Απόστολου Χατζηχρήστου-Γιώργου Φωτιάδη και «Σαν απόκληρος γυρίζω» του Βασίλη Τσιτσάνη).

The musical wandering of the two bands in the vast paths of music continues with top songs of important modern classics, ποπ και ροκ συνθετών και τραγουδοποιών όπως συμβαίνει με τα: «Mack the knife» από την «Όπερα της πεντάρας» των Κουρτ Βάιλ-Μπέρτολτ Μπρεχτ, «Ma Matutinum» (2005) του Βέλγου Νίκολας Λενς, «Hallelujah» (1984) του Λέοναρντ Κοέν, «Mountains o’things» (1988) της Τρέισι Τσάπμαν αλλά και το «Bullet in the head», γραμμένο το 1992 από τους αμερικανούς ρόκερς-ράπερς Rage Against The Machine.

Ενώ δεν λείπουν ορισμένα περίφημα κινηματογραφικά σάουντρακς όπως τα: «Amara me» σε μουσική Νίνο Ρότα (an Italian fado from the movie “Film of love and anarchy, 1973), "Belleville rendez-vous" by Benoit Charest-Sylvain Sommet - arrangement by Mata Kurtis - from the animated film "The Belleville Trio" by 2003 and "La despedida" written and composed by Shakira especially for the film "Love in the Cholera Years" 2008, commissioned by the author of the novel of the same name, Γκαμπριέλ Γκαρσία Μάρκες. Στο a capella-beatbox πρόγραμμα των Σανάδων-Word of Mouth εντάσσονται, end, διασκευές εξαιρετικά σύγχρονων τραγουδιών Ελλήνων δημιουργών της έντεχνης μουσικής – όπως «Το σκοτάδι των δύο» (2010) by Phoebus Delivorias – but also originals, their own compositions («Step into the light»), beatbox improvisations and medleys.

The vocal group Sanades was created in October 2007 στην Αθήνα και σήμερα αποτελείται από τέσσερις τραγουδίστριες με διαφορετικές μουσικές καταβολές. Καθοριστική για τη δημιουργία του σχήματος ήταν η συμμετοχή των μελών του στα σεμινάρια που διοργανώνει ο Ρος Ντέιλι και το μουσικό εργαστήρι Λαβύρινθος στην Κρήτη. Οι ζωντανές εμφανίσεις των Σανάδων ξεκίνησαν με τη συμμετοχή τους στο Muse Festival το Δεκέμβρη του 2007 στον Ιανό. Ακολούθησε μια σειρά εμφανίσεων σε διάφορες μουσικές σκηνές της Αθήνας. In July of 2008 εμφανίστηκαν στο Θέατρο Βράχων με τους Χαϊνηδες και τους Mode Plagal.

Η ηχογράφηση της συναυλίας αυτής κυκλοφόρησε τον Δεκέμβριο του 2008 στο διπλό cd «Η Κάθοδος των Σαλτιμπάγκων». Από τo 2009 η συνεργασία τους με το beatbox σχήμα Word of Mouth τους δίνει την δυνατότητα να παρουσιάσουν με επιτυχία σειρά μουσικών παραστάσεων. Οι τέσσερις τραγουδίστριες, μέσα από τα μονοπάτια των πολυφωνικών παραδόσεων, πειραματίζονται με δικές τους συνθέσεις και διασκευάζουν από Απόστολο Καλδάρα μέχρι Dr. John.

Οι Word of Mouth είναι οι πιο γνωστοί εκπρόσωποι του human beatbox στην Ελλάδα, δηλαδή της τέχνης αναπαραγωγής ρυθμών και μελωδιών με τη χρήση μόνο του ανθρώπινου στόματος. Έχουν εμφανιστεί ως επίσημοι ομιλητές στα πλαίσια του TEDx Athens 2011 προωθώντας την «γλώσσα» του beatbox, του Παγκόσμιου διαγωνισμού Beatbox Battle (Βερολίνo 2009), του Ελληνικού Φεστιβάλ, του Μεγάρου Μουσικής Αθηνών και ανοίξει συναυλίες καταξιωμένων hip hop ξένων καλλιτεχνών στην Ελλάδα, όπως οι Snoop Dogg (US), Phi-Life Cypher (UK), Lords of the Underground (US) και Beat Assaillant (US).

Η μόνιμη συνεργασία τους από το 2009 με το πολυφωνικό συγκρότημα Σανάδες σε διασκευές από την Ελλάδα και όλο τον κόσμο ανέδειξε τις δυνατότητες της μουσικής σύνδεσης φωνής και beatbox, με σειρά πετυχημένων παραστάσεων στην Αθήνα και την περιφέρεια («A capella Stories» στο Θέατρο Δίπυλον, «Είναι τρέλα το A capella» στην Αθηναΐδα κ.ά.). Οι φωνητικές ικανότητες των μελών του σχήματος έχουν χρησιμοποιηθεί σε σειρά διαφημιστικών για την τηλεόραση και το ραδιόφωνο, σε ειδικά γεγονότα αλλά και σε δισκογραφικές δουλειές άλλων καλλιτεχνών. Οι Word of Mouth έχουν δημιουργήσει την πρώτη Beatbox Academy στην Ελλάδα στην οποία διδάσκουν τα μυστικά και την τεχνική του beatbox. Η πρώτη τους δισκογραφική δουλειά αναμένεται να κυκλοφορήσει μέσα στο 2012.    

Source : culturenow.gr

Athens Concert Hall

Women sing the elementary school in the Athens Concert Hall

The Athens Concert Hall presents the concert "Women's Voices in Folk Song" on Wednesday, February 29 2012.

The concert is dedicated to the leading performer Domna Samiou. A woman who has written history in the field of our folk song, so with her voice, the ethos, her style and authentic performances as well as her thorough knowledge of the subject of our traditional music through her many years of research and recording.

With songs of the cycle of life(lullabies, of marriage, of strangeness, obituaries) but also oldest narrative ballads with dramatic content (excuses) that refer to ancient drama we meet women in the folk song tradition. Priestesses at the "passport" ceremonies (related to birth, the wedding, death and communication with supernatural elements), women manage a very wide range of songs with strongly symbolic content and functions.

"Women's Voices in Folk Song", "media of communication" between the real and supernatural worlds, have the first floor at the fourth concert in a row of the Tribute to the Masters of Greek Traditional Music - edited by Lambros Liavas – which will take place on Wednesday 29 February, at 8.30 at night, in the Christos Lambrakis Hall. The Masters of Greek Folk Music Series is part of the Hellenic Music Circle.

Savina Giannatou, Katerina Zakka, Maria Koti, Katerina Papadopoulou, and Yasemi Saragouda take us on a journey through tradition with songs from Epirus and Crete to Asia Minor.

With the masters of our traditional music (Saragouda, Arkadopoulos, Sinopoulos, Tsiamoulis et al.)

The women from New Eritrea dance and sing

The selections in the concert cover many different musical genres from all areas of Hellenism as well as different singing techniques. Entries include 'professional' singers – Savina Giannatou, the great contemporary performer who has been identified in our consciousness with "world music", the original performer of Epirus songs, Katerina Zakka, the Heraklion singer of the band "Chainides", Maria Koti, Katerina Papadopoulou who travels us to the distant Pontus and her special homeland, Yasemi Saragouda of Smyrna (wife of the leading folk master of the outi Nikos Saragouda who will accompany her on stage), great performer of the Asia Minor song – as well as ordinary women who sing and, simultaneously, they dance at celebrations, customs and rituals but also in their daily life as it happens with the Women from New Eritrea.

On their side they still appear

the musicians Alexandros Arkadopoulos (clarinet), Socrates Sinopoulos (Pontic and civil lyre, civil lute), Christos Tsiamoulis (oud, lute), Panos Dimitrakopoulos (rule), Stella Valasis (zither) and Kostas Meretakis (crust).

The ethnomusicologist, professor of the University of Athens and president of the Museum of Folk Instruments, Lampros Liavas, puts his signature on the editing of the tribute which gives the public the opportunity to come into direct contact with top masters of our popular tradition who present representative pieces from many regions of Greece as well as from the "edges of Hellenism" (Asia Minor, Point, Cappadocia).

In the fourth consecutive concert of the Tribute to the Masters of Greek Traditional Music, women from different generations, places and "schools" of folk song, "professionals" and non, sometimes they perform in a traditional style and sometimes with ethnic shades representative samples of their art, with selections from the repertoire of land and sea Greece as well as from the "Edges of Hellenism" (Asia Minor, Point).

The evergreen Yasemi Saragouda comes from an old musical family of Smyrna, performs traditional Asia Minor songs – something he does from the 16 her years – accompanied by her husband, of top player Nikos Saragouda.

The deep connoisseur of Epirotian obituaries and foreign singer Katerina Zakka communicates through the authenticity of her interpretation the feeling of pain and loss of the woman who is left behind saying goodbye to the dead or the runaways.

Katerina Papadopoulou takes us on a journey to her special homeland, performing songs from Pontus, Constantinople and the neighboring Aegean, with her husband, Socrates Sinopoulos, to accompany her on the Pontic and political lyre and the political lute while the singer of the "Chainides", Maria Koti,  transports us to Crete by performing "Tambachaniotika" or otherwise "Cretan rebetika": urban folk songs that combine Asia Minor with the Cretan musical idiom in a unique repertoire.

The very special role of the woman as "priestess" in the "passport" ceremonies (such as the "lullabies" associated with birth, wedding songs or obituaries) and narrator in ancient ballads with dramatic content (excuses) that refer to ancient drama, has the great performer and composer Savina Giannatou, our modern "voice of the Mediterranean and the world", as they have called her.

At the climax of the evening, the Women from New Eritrea – a distinct group of "girlfriends" originating from Ionian Erythraia in Asia Minor, which in their daily life organize on a regular basis genuine Asia Minor feasts and rituals, promise to sway with song, their music and dance – the elements, that is, who make up the "equal and indivisible trinity of our popular culture" - the audience of Megaros, inviting it to become a communicant of a philosophy of life that obeys active participation and authenticity of expression.

 Source : culturenow.gr

Athens Concert Hall

Chick Corea and Gary Burton at the Athens Concert Hall

The Athens Concert Hall presents Chick Corea and Gary Burton, a collaboration that jazz fans are looking forward to. The concert will take place on 15 Of March 2012 in the context of the Bridges series.

Chick Corea

If one considers the volume of his last discography 40 years, can not doubt that Chick Korea is one of the most productive composers of our time. From avant-garde to bebop, from children's songs to the avant-garde, from fusion to classical music, Chick Korea always maintains high quality standards in its work.

Has won 14 Grammy, while he was a candidate at least 50 times. The 2005 was awarded the Ruhr Prize in Germany (an award first given to a jazz pianist) and 2006 was named "New Jazz Master" which is the biggest distinction for jazz in the US.

Gary Burton

He was born and raised in Indiana. Self-taught in vibraphone, the genius musician Gary Burton 1971 became a professor at Berkeley College of Music in Boston (in percussion and improvisation), the 1985 was appointed Rector, the 1989 he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the same College and 1996 appointed Vice President.

He won his first Grammy for his album Alone at Last (solo vibraphone) recorded at the Montreux Festival in 1971. Many other Grammy Awards followed (several from his collaboration with Korea) and was nominated for the same award 14 times.

He has a long and deep professional personal relationship with Chick Korea. Beyond their recordings, give many concerts as duos in America and Europe.

Chick Corea piano
Gary Burton βιμπράφωνο

The series Bridges is directed by Dimitris Maragopoulos

"One of the most popular collaborations in the field of jazz"
"Wonderful dynamic balance"
Los Angeles Times

Source : culturenow.gr

Athens Concert Hall

The National Theater of England at the Concert Hall

A theatrical trip down memory lane, from his Hollywood 1936, in the small Eastern European village of the early 20th century, to the early steps of the moving image and the explosion of technological wonder, is the new work of Nicholas Wright directed by Nicholas Heitner, which turns the theater stage into a cinema screen.

The reason for the show "The Traveling Light" (Travelling Light), which will be presented at the Athens Concert Hall (Alexandra Trianti Hall) on Thursday 16 February (at 9 p.m.) in a taped broadcast from England's National Theatre.

The project combines the idea of ​​immigration and cinema, the route from the Jewish folk tradition of Europe to American cinema and is inspired by the fact that many Hollywood directors were Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. In the leading roles, the Athenian audience will have the opportunity to enjoy the multi-awarded theater actor Anthony Sher, and Paul Jason.

Two times and two places are the space-time of the action: At the beginning we are in his Hollywood 1936 in the company of Maurice Montgomery, a successful director, who at 60 of, "visits" the beginnings of his career in a small village in Eastern Europe in the early years of the 20th century.

The masterful direction of the director of the National Theater of England, Nicholas Heitner, along with Bob Crowley's setting, evoking Chagall and Fiddler on the Roof, they create the right landscape for John Discoll's videos and projections, with which we travel since the first films, with the bearded villagers, in the melodramas of silent cinema. Much of "Travelling Light" is played out on screen, behind the actors, a production hint at today's theater's debt to cinema.

This is the fourth broadcast by the National Theater of England- after "Servant of Two Masters", "Kitchen" and "Collaborators"- which "hosts" the Concert Hall this year, in collaboration with the British Embassy and the British Council.

Source : newsbeast.gr
Athens Concert Hall

The Symphonic Music of Mikis Theodorakis at the Athens Concert Hall

TheAthens Concert Hallpresents one concertwith thesymphonic musicofMiki Theodorakisher Friday 10 February 2012.
THEMikis Theodorakis has devoted a large part of his creative activity to symphonic music. The work of the composerTheodorakisis an important point of reference for its planning Music Hall: this concert is a part of his full presentation, which is planned for the next artistic periods.
Mikis Theodorakis:
– Adagio
– Piano Concerto no. 2
 
Dmitri Shostakovich:
– Agreement no. 6, work 54
Soloist: Kyprianos Katsarispiano
State Orchestra of Athens
Music direction: Loukas Karytinos

Co-production:
Organization of the Athens Concert Hall & State Orchestra of Athens

Source : culturenow.gr