“The artistic design of the 2022-23 season is full of stories and occasions for people to come together” notes the Artistic Director, Yiannis Vakarelis.
Great stars of the violin, piano, opera and dance will be hosted this year by the Athens Concert Hall, through a multi-collective program that includes classical music, contemporary creation, leans on tradition with a fresh look, introduces the new generation of creators, challenges , “plants” seeds for the future, is open to improvisation, highlights the female presence and raises awareness of nature and the environment.
“The artistic planning of the 2022-23 period is full of stories and occasions for people to come together” notes the Artistic Director of the Athens Music Palace, Yiannis Vakarelis.
“The anticipation of the end of the pandemic and the return to “normality” met in 2022 with geopolitical developments and the urgent need to turn our attention to climate change and the environment. The extended periods in which we were confined were for all a period of reflection. A period with a strong need to understand the ever-changing everyday life. What remains common in this spiritual journey is the need for people to be together. And art remains that discreet thread that sometimes becomes a safety net and sometimes a ribbon in the hair that waves carelessly, but above all it is the thread that holds us together. Through a multi-collective program, we aim for our audience to have an even greater interaction with the Megaro. Let’s create the common place, where the “tribes” of music, dance, theater and opera will meet. A Mansion for All,” he adds.
Among the names we will see this year on the Megaro’s stages we meet the violinists Leonida Kavako, Viktoria Mullova, Vilde Frang, Janine Jansenthe pianists Yuja Wang, Maria João Pires, Nikolai Lugansky, Rafal Blechacz and lyrical singers Joyce DiDonato and Lise Davidsen.
Among the Greek artists stands outDimitris Papaioannou with the first presentation in Greece of the long-awaited work of “INK”, while with new productions the Englishman is coming to AthensAkram KhanandGrand Ballets Canadiens .
The tone for the 2022-2023 artistic season is set by the new musical sections ‘Violin Masters’, ‘Piano Days’ and ‘Jazz@Megaron’, which combine with the successful Spring Festival launched last year, as well as the much-loved circles “Great Orchestras” and “Great Performers”.
As part of the new ‘Violin Masters’ series of events, Megaro becomes a meeting place for established as well as up-and-coming soloists who excel in the world’s greatest concert halls.
So this season, we will enjoy in the Christos Lambrakis Hall the beloved acquaintance of the Greek audience Viktoria Mullova, the amazing Dutch virtuoso Janine Jansen and the popular Leonidas Kavakos in a recital with the piano star Yuja Wang. Also, in the spring we will meet the Norwegian Vilde Frang, a soloist with a strong presence on the world music scene.
As for opera lovers, they will have the opportunity to enjoy two of the greatest voices of our time: the American mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato and the Norwegian soprano Lise Davidsen in their first appearance at the Megaro.
The piano occupies a special place in this year’s artistic programming. At the end of January, Piano Days are organized for the first time. This celebratory two-day event marks the start of the Palace’s partnership with the Steinway Prizewinner Concerts Network, a world-renowned artistic organization that highlights soloists who have won prizes in major international competitions. Among others, we will listen to Jean-Louis Steuerman, Alexia Mouza, Achillea Vastor, Nefeli Mousoura and Olga Davnis.
In addition, this season, three of the most important pianists of our time are performing in the halls of the Palace: Maria João Pires and Nikolai Lugansky, who have been particularly popular with the Greek public for many years, but also the young Rafal Blechacz, the Polish virtuoso which swept the awards at the 2005 International Chopin Competition.
Symphonic sound is always at the heart of the “Great Orchestras” cycle, which, in 2022-2023, hosts the Orchestra Maggio Musicale Fiorentino with Daniele Gatti on the podium.
The program also includes concerts by the baroque ensemble Les Arts Florissants under William Christie with the delightful tribute “Moliere and his music”, the Chamber Orchestra of Europe conducted by Sir Antonio Pappano, the Ensemble Festival Strings Lucerne, the Sinfonia Varsovia and the pre-classical music orchestra Il Pomo d’Oro conducted by Maxim Emelyanychev.
November will be the month of jazz (Jazz@Megaron), with well-known names from Greece and abroad: Stefano di Battista Quartet, Dimitris Vassilakis-Gil Weiberg-Shimon Robot & Friends (for the first time in Greece), Espen Berg Trio , Sakis Papadimitriou, Tasos Pappas, Stavros Lantsias, Alexandros Drakos-Ktistakis and Dimitris Kalantzis.
The theater curtain of Megaros opens this year with Alfred Lord Tennysson’s masterpiece, “Enoch Arden” to music by Richard Strauss (12 and 14/9), which is staged in a co-production with the Municipal Theater of Piraeus, directed by Lefteris Yovanidis with: Nikos Karathano (in the role of the narrator), Thodoris Tzovanakis (on the piano) and the soprano Anna Stylianakis.
The theatrical productions of the 2022-2023 artistic season also include the play “Full Moon” written and directed by Christoforos Christofis (16-21/12). Magda Mavroyianni, creator of the musical analogies “Portraits of Women”, presents on stage the life of the Mexican painter Frida Kahlo (13-14/2). Also, the cooperation of the Mansion with the Drama School of the Athens Conservatory continues. This year, theatergoers will watch the show “Awkwardness, a way to fail” directed by Ilias Kounela (22 and 23/10).
The Athens Concert Hall always highlights young artists from both the domestic and the international music scene. In addition to the importance he gives to the performances of young Greek soloists in the Dimitris Mitropoulos Hall, this season he is strengthening his international collaborations, with the aim of promoting new talents.
The Children’s Palace
The program of events, aimed at the little friends of the Palace and their families, is richer than ever.
The world’s most famous shipwrecked man, Robinson Crusoe, is the protagonist of the eponymous musical theater performance for the whole family presented for the first time at Megaro (new production), directed by Tatiana Lygaris and adapted by Giorgos Galitis, from October 2022 to April 2023. A wonderful children’s show, full of humor, with impressive interactive projections, with original music by Mina I. Alexiadis – which is performed live on stage – and inventive sets and costumes by Yiannis Metzikofs.
Sunday concerts for the whole family: In the performance “Haydn shut up” (6/11), Nadia Kontogeorgi, accompanied by the ERT Symphony Orchestra, will tell the fascinating story of the creation of Symphony no. 45 by the great Austrian musician. The popular actress and the ERT Symphony Orchestra will also present Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (date to be announced), a composition based on William Shakespeare’s famous play.
The Athens International Film Festival for Children and Adolescents (14-20/11) renews its annual appointment with young viewers and their families and promises a rich program of screenings.
Finally, Ilias Karellas, after last year’s success of “The Sound of Shadows”, welcomes us for the second year in this original educational spectacle aimed at children of all ages (Oct. 2022-Apr. 2023). In the performance “Karagiozis in the music competitions”, in the lighted stage we will meet the giant figures of Karagiozis and his company, while we will hear sounds of the past and sounds of today, intense rhythms and enchanting melodies. Musical companion of H. Karellas, Areti Ketime (voice, santouri).
Educational actions
Throughout the season, every weekend, the Megaro proposes actions for young and old (families, children, teenagers, adults, schools), which, thanks to the experiential and interdisciplinary contact with music and its conversation with other arts, introduce us to a magical world. He invites us to get to know the musical instruments, to attend concerts, narrations, screenings, to take part in workshops, to tour his premises, to discover his professions, to meet contributors to the events of the artistic program.
annexM-The center for visual arts of the Palace
The new exhibition by Giorgos Xenos (b. 1953), curated by Anna Cafetsis, is designed around the idea of a closed-open archive of images, sounds and concepts, which is hidden and revealed as a scene and as a blanket. Public “murals” alternate with painted miniatures and inaccessible blueprint archives. Archetypal images of the house and empty interiors, labyrinths, face-numbers, shadows, primordial cryptic writings, riddles and mythical symbols create intimate and disturbing dream topographies of confinement and freedom, interiority and contemplation, in black and white. The dream, with its Freudian meaning, an incomprehensible writing in images freed from compulsions, finds its visual analogue in the works of Giorgos Xenos. His painting as a place of meditation seeks the thought that would dream (Dec. 2022-Feb. 2023).
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