Cultural Events in Thessaloniki

Updated: 2004-06-28 15:54

For the Olympic Football Tournament in Thessaloniki there will be major cultural events with a whole range of music options, showcasing the monuments and beauties of nature of the capital of Northern Greece. Historical sites such as the Yedikule, areas of natural beauty such as the Thermi Reservoir, key urban spaces such as the Port and the Kodra Army Camp, and recent buildings such as the Lazarist Monastery, the Byzantine Museum and the Garden Theatre will play host to performances - of traditional Greek music, world folk music, jazz, rock, classical music, dance, poetry, and film.

The programme of cultural events was unveiled by Thanos Mikroutsikos, cultural adviser to ATHENS 2004. Also present were the Mayor of Thessaloniki, Vasilis Papageorgopoulos, and ATHENS 2004 General Manager for Coordination with Public Administration, Athanasios Kantartzis.

There will be a large number of events, with over a hundred and fifty performers from Greece and abroad taking part, in seven separate areas of the municipalities of Thessaloniki, Thermi, Stavropoli, and Kalamaria, on 9 and 10 August 2004. The Artistic Director is Sakis Papadimitriou and technical production is in the hands of the company Sakis Manafis & Norah Christodoulou Culture and Communciation.

Programme details:

Monday 9 August

THERMI RESERVOIR, Contemporary Greek songs

a) With a multi-member formation of 10 musicians, songstress Lizeta Kalimeri and singer Pantelis Theocharidis, composer Giorgos Kazantzis will present a retrospective of his work with his songs and compositions.

b) Next up are the six-member group Mode Plagal, who have created their own unique brand of music, rooted mainly in traditional Greek music enriched by Byzantine, Balkan and African sounds as well as elements of Jazz.

c) Finally, Ellis Paspala, David Lynch, Stavros Lantsias and Panagiotis Kiourtsoglou will present familiar successes from their rich collection of earlier releases.

LAZARIST MONASTERY, Contemporary Greek and Italian songs

a) Christos Thivaios and Italian songstress Emilia Ottaviano will be presenting what are for the most part personal composition by the Greek artist and Greek songs from southern Italy.

b) And, from Apulia, Italy, Michele Vurchio and the Etno Drums, consisting of seven musicians and a dancer, will present a panorama of their work with sounds based on percussion and electrical organs, imbued with hues from Africa, the Caribbean and, naturally, from their own land.

BYZANTINE MUSEUM, Classical and modern music

a) The first part is an appearance by Lola Totsiou with two different groups. The Nada Trio, with Kostas Theodorou and Takis Barbas present Indian bhajans (bhajans are simple songs of the soul expressing Man’s emotions towards God in the form of thanksgiving, supplications and prayers, that are deeply rooted in India’s culture). The trio of pianists, with Thana Paschalidou and Stella Palaiologou will present Lola Totsiou’s new work ‘Dance with Me’.

b) The second part revolves around Works of Modern Greek Composers. The programme includes work by Nikos Strinidis and Dimitris Themelis, the later composers performed by 14 musicians. They include Anastasis Vasiliadis, Kostas Tsoungras and Antonis Anisengos, who will be performing their own compositions. There will also be a premiere performance of the ‘Typaio’, specially written by Antonis Anisengos for the event and for all the show’s musicians. Other participants include Erato Alakiozidou, the Macedonian Sax Quartet, etc.

GARDEN THEATRE, Jazz

a) The show opens with the Five Winds and saxophone player Takis Paterelis. In their work one finds the polymetric dimension of Balkan music and Eastern musical mannerisms blending with jazz improvisation and the rhythmic intensity of Afro-American music. The compositions are the work of sax player Dimos Dimitriadis and Giorgos Dimitriadis.

b) The quintet of saxophone player-composer Carlo Actis Dato from Turin appear in the second part of the show. They are Italy’s, and the Mediterranean’s response to New York’s ‘new scene’.

c) The Lakis Tzimkas and Oleg Chaly Quartet appear in the second part with their own compositions and the evening closes with a jam session in which they are joined by four other Thessaloniki musicians.

Tuesday 10 August

PORT, Music & Film

a) ‘Visual Symphony’. The twenty two members of the Synchrony Orchestra, (orchestrations and musical direction by Heraklis Kazakis), play along with film sequences (choice and presentation of sequences by film director Akis Kersanidis). Their programme includes film music and songs from world cinema by composers such as Bernard Herrmann, Henry Mancini, Astor Piazzolla, Ennio Morricone, Nino Rota,and Francis Lai.

b) ‘Visual Sounds’. Cinιastes Nikos Tzaferidis (Vinski), Chryssa Tzelepi, and Haris Martis join musicians Dimitra Adam, Panagiotis ‘Pint-Size’ Vendras, and Giorgos ‘Banduk’ Apostolakis, who will be accompanying the projection on stage. Their collaboration aims at specifically creating three experimental multimedia works for the event, that are being performed for the very first time.

YEDIKULE, Music & Poetry

a) In Part I there is a poetry reading entitled ‘Poems for Thessaloniki’. Choice of poems, and translations, are by Sakis Serefas, and the director is Giannis Mitrou. The programme includes poems by Anagnostakis, Aslanoglou, Kareli, Meskos, Savvopoulos, King, M?ller, and Edward Thomas.Musical accompaniment is by the Alma Kalma Performing Arts Workshop.

b) In Part II there are poems by Cavafy and Ritsos, in settings by Mikroutsikos. The readers are Georgia Syllaiou and Kostas Thomaidis, with Thodoros Oikonomou at the piano.

c) In Part III there is a concert entitled ‘From Seikilos to Tom Waits’ by Musica Lontana quartet (Sakis Papadimitriou, piano; Georgia Syllaiou, vocalist; Lakis Tzimkas, double bass; Christos Germenoglou, percussion). The programme takes listeners from the Song of Seikilos (Asia Minor) as far a field as Armenia and the Hebrides.

It includes settings of Vittorino Curci’s Apulian dialect poems, by Vincenzo Mastropirro, excerpts from the dramatic work Vita Breve (Willems-Mikroutsikos), two poems by Brecht, improvisations by the quartet, and poems by Georgia Syllaiou, ending with a short tribute to Tom Waits.

KODRA ARMY CAMP, Rock

Five local new scene rock groups in a powerful, innovative concert.

Universal Trilogy (group of 4). Inventive Thessaloniki English-language electronic, six singles, many live appearances in Greece and elsewhere over the last ten years.

Semele Tagara Trio. Semele Tagara’s life experiences in her own music and poems, with the sounds and rhythms of contemporary rock and pop.

Broken Seals (group of 5). Bursts of romantic melody, hints of Bad Seeds and psychedelic. A group with a big history of appearances in Thessaloniki.

Boomstate (group of 7). Formation influenced by many different trends, from electronic music to industrial and jazz. Uses elaborate western and sometimes seductive oriental melodies, producing their own special sound that is not like any other group in Greece.

Frantic V (group of 5). Obvious references to mid ‘60s rock n’ roll. Influences include Music Machine, Standells, Yardbirds, Kinks, and local English-language scene bands. They have done a lot of recording, and their music is circulated by companies abroad as well as in Greece.

As part of the celebration for the Lighting and Overnight Ceremony of the Olympic Flame in Thessaloniki on 23 July, there will be two concerts in the area round the White Tower.

In the first half of the programme Eleni Tsaligopoulou and her group will perform well-loved numbers that she has recorded, and songs by the classic Greek songwriters.

In the second half Nikos Portokaloglou and his group will take listeners on a journey in song from the “Fatme”era down to the present.