The Athens Concert Hall (or Megaron Moussikis) heads towards a musical end of the year with something for everyone: a two-day musicology conference for the intellectually minded; internationally acclaimed orchestras for the symphony lovers and a production of The Nutcracker for ballet aficionados.
Olympics and politics
Anticipating the 2004 Olympic Games , the Virtuosi di Praga arrive in Athens (November 12) to perform Pietro Metastasio's L'Olimpiade, an 18th-century opera libretto on friendship and the spirit of competition, put to music by significant composers, such as Vivaldi and Pergolesi.
Meanwhile, the International Dimitris Mitropoulos 2003 competition for singers (December 3) will see twelve finalists compete for a place in the Cultural Olympiad's Opera of the Earth troupe, due to perform Vasil Tole's Eumenides at the Ancient Stadium of Delphi next year.
At the Megaron, even politics (Greeks being the politicised people they are) can mix with music. In a night (November 1st) entitled, Greek Music and Politics, the Greek Ensemble of Contemporary Music conducted by Theodore Antoniou perform five works by five Greek composers, namely Alekos Xenos, Nikiforos Rotas , Yorgos Chatzimichelakis, Yorgos Kouroupos and Yannis Christou. Maria Farantouri, the voice that immortalised Mikis Theodorakis’ political songs, will interpret tunes by famed Turkish composer, writer and filmmaker Zulfu Livaneli, an avid defender of Greek-Turkish rapprochement (November 5).
From theory to practice
At the heart of every musical performance lies its theory and German philosopher and musicologist Theodor Adorno conceived new ways of deciphering music’s code and sociological relevance. The 2nd International Congress of Musicology and Musical Analysis and Interpretation (November 4-6), is aptly dedicated to this highly influential philosopher, one hundred years after his birth. The BBC Symphony Orchestra and its charismatic American conductor Leonard Slatkin head over to dazzle with a selection of works by Joseph Schwantner, Mozart and Rachmaninov on November 8, and Britten, Yorgos Tsontakis and Dvorak, on November 9.
Meanwhile, Maria Callas’s best loved conductor, Georges Prêtre, will lead the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra (November 20-21) through Wagner’s Tannhauser Overture and Respighi’s Fontane di Roma and Pini di Roma. For his part, South Korean Myung-Whun Chung, a most distinguished personality, will be conducting the French Radio Philharmonic Orchestra in a night of Strauss and Beethoven (December 6), followed by Tchaikovsky and Berlioz (December 7-8). Joining him will be piano sensation Dimitris Sgouros .
From Baroque to tomorrow
As part of the well-established Rising Stars series, which promotes the work of young and ambitious talents worldwide, Belgrade-born pianist Anika Vavic , fresh from recitals at New York’s Carnegie Hall and Salzburg’s Mozarteum, visits Athenians (December 8) with a programme consisting of Haydn, Ravel, Skriabin and Prokofiev. Young Russian virtuoso Arcadi Volodos , nominated for a 2001 Grammy Award for his recording of Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No.3, will be performing this oft-ignored “Rach 3” on December 1.
Taking a leap back to Baroque times, the group of freelance musicians that make up the Stuttgart Bach Collegium will perform (November 27, 29 and 30) solo extracts from Bach's St Matthew Passion (Matthauspassion).
Christmas specials
The Andreyev Imperial Russian Orchestra will contribute to Christmas celebrations with Russian balalaikas and traditional folk songs by Khackaturian, Borodin, Shostakovich, Milhaud and Mussorgsky (December 14). Local ensemble Melos Brass performs Christmas carols from Wales, Argentina, France, Germany and Spain (December 15).
Christmas just isn’t Christmas without fairytales, so Pericles Koukos presents his Merlin and the Island of Poets, performed by the Megaron’s resident chamber orchestra, La Camerata, with actor Kostas Kastanas as narrator. Elsewhere, Vladimir ‘dancer of the century’ Malakhov http://www.malakhov.com, and his group of soloists from the corps de ballet of the Kiev Opera, brings the Nutcracker Suite to stage (December 22, 23, 25, 26, 27, 29 and 30).
