Magical Night - New Year's Concert

Magical Night

New Year’s Concert Organized by: STATE ORCHESTRA OF THESSALONIKI in collaboration with the THESSALONIKI CONCERT HALL

PROGRAM

Works by Mikis Theodorakis (1925-2021):

• Greek Carnival, ballet suite for orchestra

7 songs from the Odyssey:

• Shipwrecked (orch. Antonis Sousamoglou)
• The Song of the Companions (orch. Antonis Sousamoglou)
• To Calypso (orch. Antonis Sousamoglou)
• Eros, the God (orch. Lazaros Tsavdaridis)
• The Beautiful Helen (orch. Antonis Sousamoglou)
• The Song of the Sirens (orch. Lazaros Tsavdaridis)
• Sea, Enchantress (orch. Lazaros Tsavdaridis)
• For all titles of the Odyssey, the poetry is by Kostas Kartelis.

Greek Carnival, ballet suite for orchestra

Selections from popular songs by Mikis Theodorakis: (transcribed for symphony orchestra: Antonis Sousamoglou, Lazaros Tsavdaridis)

• Magical Night (lyrics: Giannis Theodorakis, orch. Antonis Sousamoglou)
• Of the Little North Wind (lyrics: Odysseas Elytis, orch. Lazaros Tsavdaridis)
• If You Remember My Dream (lyrics: Nikos Gatsos, orch. Antonis Sousamoglou)
• Dawn (lyrics: Kostas Tripolitsis, orch. Antonis Sousamoglou)
• Old Roads (lyrics: Manolis Anagnostakis, orch. Lazaros Tsavdaridis)
• Sleep Wrapped / A Little More (lyrics: Giorgos Seferis, orch. Lazaros Tsavdaridis)
• The Vowed / Don’t Cry for the Romanity (lyrics: Yannis Ritsos, orch. Lazaros Tsavdaridis)

In 2025, it will be 100 years since the birth of the leading Greek composer Mikis Theodorakis, and the STO could not but welcome the new year with works by this colossus of Greek music. Along with the orchestra, the preeminent interpreter of his works, Maria Farantouri, and the conductor Myron Michailidis, who served as the Director of the STO for many years, will participate. Greek Carnival is a ballet suite for orchestra that Theodorakis began writing while in exile on Ikaria. According to him, it was the reason he came into contact with our folk music for the first time. Mikis Theodorakis’ Odyssey record is a musical journey of the composer’s life, as he wrote the first song on the record at the age of 12 and the last at the age of 81. Mikis Theodorakis talks about the love, loneliness, and dead ends of the modern man, seeking his own Ithaca as a modern Odysseus. Antonis Sousamoglou and Lazaros Tsavdaridis transcribe these songs, as well as many other well-known and beloved songs of our great composer, in this New Year’s dedication on the 100th anniversary of his birth.