11th Chamber Music Festival Chania

11th Chamber Music Festival Chania

«Création du Monde»

28 August- 4 September 2023

2023 sees the Chamber Music Festival Chania enter its second decade as a summer fixture on Crete's musical calendar. To date, the only event on Crete to focus on chamber music has hosted 34 concerts attended by at least 5,000 music lovers.

The overall title of this year's Festival is "The Creation of the World - Création du Monde". Starting from the ballet music of that name written by the French composer Darius Milhaud in 1923, and staging five concerts in all--two in the iconic Theatre of Ancient Aptera, with the full support of the Ephorate of Antiquities of Chania and the Region of Crete--, the Festival will spotlight chamber works that broke new ground with their aesthetic and their content; works that opening up new horizons and Created (new) Worlds.

Infdormation: www.chambermusicfestival.gr

UNDER THE AUSPICES AND SUPPORT OF:
Ministry of Culture & Sports
Greek National Tourism Organisation

WITH THE SUPPORT OF:
Region of Crete
Municipality of Chania

Grand Sponsor:
EMresorts

Sponsor:
Alpha Bank

PROGRAM

Monday, August 28^th, 2023, 21.00
Imperial Conference Centre, Minoa Palace Resort, Platanias
 
1st concert: In the world
 
CLAUDE DEBUSSY (1862-1918)
Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune (transcribed for chamber ensemble by Benno Sachs under the supervision of Arnold Schoenberg)
 
Members of the Municipality of Heraklion Youth Symphony Orchestra
Konstantina Strataki, flute
Kostis Siragakis, clarinet
Giannis Mageiropoulos, violin
Giorgos Chliavoras, violin
Stefanos Symeonidis, viola
Kostis Spyridakis, violoncello
Lefteris Boutsolis, double bass
Giannis Boufidis, piano
Manolis Griniazakis, percussion(antique cymbals)

Vassilis Charalambidis, oboe
Titos Gouvelis, harmonium
Lina Zachari, couching - conducting
 
ALBAN BERG (1885 - 1935)
Piano Sonata, op. 1
 
Titos Gouvelis, piano
 
STEVE REICH (b. 1936)
WTC 9/11 (2010) for string quartet and pre-recorded film
 
Iason Keramidis, violin
Josef Špaček, violin
David Bogorad, viola
Timotheos Gavriilides-Petrin, cello
 
SERGEI RACHMANINOFF (1873 - 1943)
Trio élégiaque no.1 in G minor
 
Iason Keramidis, violin
Timotheos Gavriilides-Petrin, cello
Titos Gouvelis, piano
 
 
Claude Debussy's sensual and colourful Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun (1894) marks a turning point in the history of music. In it, the French composer demonstrated totally new paths which musical art could follow and inaugurated a new impressionistic school of composition. At the same time, German music begins to push against, if not to actually transcend, the limits of traditional tonality. This is very much the case in the first official work by the Austrian composer Alban Berg. Almost a century later, the whole planet would be shaken by the attacks of September 11, 2001, a momentous event that would also provide inspiration to Steve Reich, one of the leading exponents of contemporary minimalism. In contrast, Sergei Rachmaninoff's music, though "safely" ensconced in the musical idiom of 19th-century Romanticism, never loses its resonance and emotive warmth and melodiousness.

Wednesday, August 30^th, 2023, 21.00
Imperial Conference Centre, Minoa Palace Resort, Platanias
 
2nd concert: Beyond the world
 
CARL NIELSEN (1865 - 1931)
Sonata for violin and piano αρ.2, opus 35
 
Georgios Demertzis, violin
Vassilis Varvaressos, piano
 
WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756-1791)
Piano Quartet no.1 in G minor, Κ.478
 
Noé Inui, violin
David Bogorad, viola
Timotheos Gavriilidis-Petrin, cello
Vassilis Varvaressos, piano
 
Alfred Schnittke (1934-1998)
Piano quintet
 
Josef Špaček, violin
Iason Keramidis, violin
David Bogorad, viola
Angelos Liakakis, cello
Vassilis Varvaressos, piano
 
Mozart's Piano Quartet in G minor, a work with all the drama and theatricality one would expect of the composer, is not only the first quartet written for this combination of instruments, it is also one of the most popular. Those same virtues-albeit expressed in an entirely different way-are there to enjoy in the Second Violin Sonata by the Danish composer Carl Nielsen, an early 20th-century masterpiece that provocatively straddles the aesthetic boundaries between romanticism and modernism. The concert ends with Alfred Schnittke's Quintet, which the composer wrote after the death of his mother. A genuinely heart-breaking and chilling work, it consists of a painful but utterly thrilling musical journey from a horror that wears the mask of innocence into the uppermost realms of the metaphysical.

Friday, September 1^st, 2023, 21.00
Imperial Conference Centre, Minoa Palace Resort, Platanias
 
3rd concert: Parallel worlds
 
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770-1827)
Sonata for cello and piano no.1 in F major, opus 5 no.1
 
Angelos Liakakis, cello
Titos Gouvelis, piano

SIMOS PAPANAS (b. 1979)
Sonata for violin and harp
 
Iason Keramidis, violin
Gogo Xagara, harp
 
MAURICE RAVEL (1875 - 1937)
Introduction and Allegro for harp, flute, clarinet and string quartet
 
Gogo Xagara, harp
Silvia Careddu, flute
Shirley Brill, clarinet
Josef Špaček, violin
Pawel Zalejski, violin
David Bogorad, viola
Timotheos Gavriilidis-Petrin, cello
 
The harp makes its first appearance at the Chamber Music Festival Chania, but what an entrance it is! Maurice Ravel wrote his light and lucid septet-a small but shimmering harp concerto in all but name-at the dawn of the20th century. The harp's expressive potential, along with that of the violin, is also revealed in all its glory in the Sonata by the outstanding violinist and composer Simos Papanas, which can only be described as one of his most adventurous works. At the beginning of the concert, we will get to enjoy the first sonata ever written in which cello and piano collaborate as equals; a composition that showcases the young Beethoven's freshness, vitality and self-confidence.

Sunday, September 3^th & Monday September 4^th, 2023, 21.00
Ancient Theatre of Aptera
 
4th & 5th concert: The creation of the world
 
DARIUS MILHAUD (1892 - 1974)
La création du monde (The Creation of the World), suite de concert op. 81b, for chamber ensemble
 
Noé Inui, violin
Pawel Zalejski, violin
Shirley Brill, clarinet
Angelos Liakakis, cello
Titos Gouvelis, piano
 
GEORGE CRUMB (1929 - 2022)
Vox balaenae (The voice of the whale) for three masked players (electric flute, electric cello and amplified piano)
 
Silvia Careddu, flute
Angelos Liakakis, cello
Titos Gouvelis, piano
 
ROBERT SCHUMANN (1810-1856)
Piano Quintet in E flat major, opus 44
 
Pawel Zalejski, violin
Noé Inui, violin
David Bogorad, viola
Angelos Liakakis, cello
Vassilis Varvaressos, piano
 
The creation of the world brings music into being! The ground-breaking American composer George Crumb describes our planet's evolution through the eons of prehistoric via the voice of the whale, asking that the players performing his work wear masks and are bathed in blue light. Darius Milhaud draws inspiration from African creation myths, while reminding us that jazz created a new musical world of its own in the 20th century as a black musical idiom. But the creation of music also brings worlds into being! Thus it was that Schumann's Piano Quintet, one of most delightful chamber works in the romantic repertoire, brought an impressive new musical genre into being which great composers have been writing for ever since.
 
THE CONCERT IS PART OF ΤΗΕ CRETE FESTIVAL. CO-PRODUCTION WITH THE REGION OF CRETE AND THE EPHORATE OF ANTIQUITIES OF HERAKLION