News/Announcements

Sep-Dec 2019 program presentation press conference 17 September 2019

PRESS CONFERENCE
Artistic Scheduling Presentation
September-December 2019
 
The press conference for the presentation of the September-December 2019 program completed a few hours ago in the “Solon Michaelides” concert hall.
    
The Director of the TSSO, Zoi Tsokanou, first welcomed the representatives of the institutions and the media, and then she analyzed the main pillars of the project dealing with major co-productions, symphonic concerts, concerts in other cities, educational programs and chamber music.

Mrs. Tsokanou described the new program as “the program of partnerships” with the TSSO welcoming more and more entities inside and outside the city, while making special allusion of the record of 57.000 visitors on the orchestra’s 60 years anniversary. Mrs. Tsokanou started dialogs with representatives of the entities, separately alluded to the now established partnerships with Thessaloniki YMCA at the Christmas Concert and with Ephorate of Antiquities of Thessaloniki City at the series of concerts in the city’s monuments. Simultaneously Mrs.Tsokanou thanked the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, which once again this year assisted the orchestra with a donation for all the educational activities of the TSSO, making possible for the orchestra to invest in the quality of its educational programs, while emphasizing the effort to find more partners for their further development.

The President of the Economic Committee of the TSSO Mr. Uwe Matschke was pleased to present the two new musical instruments acquired, the impressive new Fazioli piano and the new celesta, detailing the construction of the Steinway piano and the purchases of other instruments that are gradually being completed in the next period. He thanked two women, his wife Mrs. Stella Papamattheou for all the strength he gives him to successfully cope with the position of Chairman of the Administrative Council of the Economic Committee and her inspiration for the purchase of the musical instruments, as well as the former Minister of Culture and Sports Mrs. Myrsini Zorba for her immediate response to the TSSO’s request to resolve this problem of the shortage of musical instruments.

Following, Zoi Tsokanou invited the Chairman of the Thessaloniki Concert Hall to the panel, Mr. Nikitas Mylopoulos and the well-known stand-up comedian Dimitris Dimopoulos, for a discussion on TSSO’s co-productions with Thessaloniki Concert Hall and the Greek National Opera, in the ballet “Swan Lake” and the comic operetta “Die Fledermaus”. Mr. Mylopoulos declared that it is a special pleasure and honor for Thessaloniki Concert Hall when hosts the TSSO, saying that even the term “hosts” is not appropriate, since they are made “TSSO for the Concert Hall and Concert Hall for the TSSO”. Referring to the overall presence of the orchestra in Thessaloniki Concert Hall, but especially to these co-productions with the National Opera and Ballet Theatre, he said that “the country’s National Cultural Group will be in the Concert Hall this period’’.

Dimitris Dimopoulos, who covered the translation of the text and lyrics of “Die Fledermaus”, reminded us that “Die Feledermaus” has not been presented again in Thessaloniki since 2007, and that even back then texts and songs were not translated in Greek. He has also updated the texts even as compared to those of the 2014 production of the National Opera in Athens, with Zoi Tsokanou at the podium at that time. Further elaborating on what to expect from the performance, he mentioned that together with the director of the play, Alexandros Euclides, decided to take the case to us, placing the plot in Greece at the time of the 1960s.

The next guest on the panel was Charalambos Angelopoulos, who spoke about TSSO’s cooperation with the Thessaloniki Piano Festival. Mr. Angelopoulos let us know that he couldn’t have imagined at the beginning, when he and Nikos Kyriosoglou started the Festival that he would already work with the TSSO for the third time in the eighth Festival. At the same time, he alluded to the cooperation with the National Opera of Greece, through which the Festival is repeated every year in Athens as well. This year’s theme of the festival is Romanticism and three outstanding pianists, Stefanos Thomopoulos, George Emmanuel Lazaridis and Karolos Zouganelis, are joining TSSO.

There, Mrs. Tsokanou mentioned the new series of actions starting with “Meet the play” that will take place before 18/10 concert, titled “German Requiem” (20:15-20:45) in the foyer of the balcony of the Concert Hall, with speaker the Director of the Bremer Domchor, Dr.Tobias Gravenhorst, and the event entitled “Meet the composer” which is to be held in the TSSO Concert Hall “Solon Michaelides”, on the eve (7/11) of the concert titled “View from Olympus”, with speaker the composer John Psathas. They both sent greetings in view of their cooperation with TSSO.

Consequently was the more detailed discussions on TSSO training programs. Mrs.Tsokanou alluded to the continuation of the good cooperation with the Municipality of Neapoli & Sykies, through which students of the municipality will have the opportunity to attend free-of-charge concerts by the TSSO and wished that other municipalities follow their lead and presented TSSO’s educational programs, announcing the continuity of the successful “It’s me, Mozart” this upcoming season, while detailing the new proposals.

Thessaloniki Film Festival’s Director, Mr. Orestes Andreadakis, was initially invited to the panel to discuss about “The Planets”. Mr.Andreadakis referred to the fact that in recent years the Festival has a main theme, borrowed from other Arts, and this year’s theme will be the Overview Effect, which relates to the phenomenon found in astronauts when they see the earth from the moon. A sensational feeling that causing both grief and rejoicing. The earth from afar seems to be a perfect planet, and the closer you see the inequalities, the borders, the sadness are being sketched. In TSSO’s concert we will see au contraire, from earth to space, through scenes coming from a large number of films about space, stars and planets. The film has been edited by a great montage technician, Frangiskos Fantopoulos, and it will be shown as the orchestra performs Holst’s Suite. “A space fiction”, as Mrs.Tsokanou called it.

Mr. Tasos Angelopoulos spoke about the concerts of the cycle “Sunday morning, music!”, along with a special guest. Louis is the doll starring in the “Along with Beethoven” program for children aged 4-11 and introduced himself as Beethoven himself in his childhood. Mr. Angelopoulos, while analyzing what parents and children are going to watch, said that by reading Beethoven’s story and looking for a link to today, he realized that the pressure to master in music reminded him a modern bullying. Listening to this wonderful music, we’ll learn how a special child like overcame his own childhood problems.

For the “A Day on a Farm” program for children aged 0-3 the idea was, as Mr. Angelopoulos said, music is to be connected with things that children at these ages understand, such as colors. “Children react to music and musicians react to children”, as he said, “and I look forward to see how this will work”.

The interview was closed with Mrs. Tsokanou’s acknowledges to the host of the TSSO “Luxury Hotels” and sponsors of communication ERT, TV100 & FM100, Kathimerini, Chroma 105,8, Cityportal, wepost, gr4you and Mr.Matchke performing an excerpt from Liszt’s etude for piano “Whispers in the Woods”, as a foretaste of the piano’s opening concert this coming Saturday, September 21, 19:00 and Sunday September 22, 12:00, in the “Solon Michaelides” Concert Hall.