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Tuesday, October 21, 2008, at 7:00 p.m.
Nikolaos Laaris pays tribute to composer George Tsontakis and performs his epic "Ghost Variations" for piano. Inspired by a Mozart theme, this work is followed by two pieces by the great Viennese master: a duo for violin and viola and a piano trio. Nikolaos Laaris is joined by Alexandros Sakarellos, violin, and Krystalia Gaitanou, viola.
PROGRAM
George Tsontakis
Ghost Variations for Piano Solo
Ι. (Ad libidum Strictly Languid Tempo I Mozart Variations)
ΙΙ. Scherzo
ΙΙΙ. Scherzo 2
W. A. Mozart
Duo for Violin and Viola in G Major, KV 423
Allegro
Adagio
Rondo: Allegro
W. A. Mozart
Trio for Violin, Viola, and Piano in E-flat Major, K498("Kegelstatt")
Andante
Menuetto
Rondo: Allegretto
Featuring:
Nikolaos Laaris, piano
Alexandros Sakarellos, violin
Krystalia Gaitanou, viola
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Photo: From the personal records of Margarita Theodorakis |
It has been fifty years since Mikis Theodorakis set Yiannis Ritsos’s Epitaphios to music, transforming his own life and Greek popular music forever. Indeed, the history of Epitaphios, both as a poem and as a song cycle, and of its reception by various sectors of the Greek population, reflects so much of modern Greece’s postwar history that it deserves a chapter in any textbook on the period. Ritsos was quite proud of the fact that the book was publicly burned by the regime of General Metaxas and remained on the list of banned books longer than any other text. For Theodorakis, the poems of Epitaphios not only inspired a splendid cycle of songs; they also prompted him to abandon a burgeoning career as a classical composer in Europe and return to immerse himself in the cultural and political life of Greece. For most Greeks, Grigoris Bithikotsis’s recording of Epitaphios, which mingled elements of the popular rembetika music with sophisticated, politically charged poetry, marked the beginning of an exciting new movement that broke down the barrier between "high" and "low" culture.
Introduction by Professor Gail Holst-Warhaft ,
Institute for Mediterranean Studies, Cornell University
Featuring:
Lina Orfanos, lyric soprano
and
The Poetica Ensemble:
Sophia Anastasia, flute
Spiros Exaras, guitar, musical directionMartin Neron, piano
Mathias Kunzli, percussion
Kostas Psarros, bouzouki