The Contemporary Music Days festival brings an unprecedented - by Greek standards - line-up of eighteen concerts dedicated to contemporary musical creation, running from 25 October to 14 November 2026 at the GNO Alternative Stage at the SNFCC. Titled Multiple Presents, the Festival features six new commissions from Greek composers, numerous premieres and reruns, as well as tributes to emblematic figures in 20th-and-21st-century music. It is a musical event of rare range and polyphony, highlighting the vibrancy of contemporary music and inviting audiences on a fascinating journey through its diverse aspects, new trends, and unexpected pathways.

This multifaceted programme, curated by composer Ioannis Angelakis, maps contemporary musical creation, spanning acoustic and electronic music as well as hybrid and stage works, through the coexistence of renowned ensembles and artists, newly formed groups, and emerging soloists and composers.

It features, among other things, tributes to György Kurtág, György Ligeti, and Georges Aperghis; concerts by the Ergon Ensemble conducted by Nicolas Vassiliou; the ERT Choir's first collaboration with the Greek Composers' Union; the TETTTIX ensemble; and an anniversary concert by the ARTéfacts ensemble. The events also include a piano recital by Stephanos Thomopoulos, unfolding the piano world of Giorgos Koumendakis; the screening of the milestone film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari accompanied by music by Nikos Karagiannis; and the new international composition competition Re:Trace.

«The Contemporary Music Days Festival was born out of a dual need: on the one hand, to create a steady place dedicated to contemporary musical creation, and on the other, to reexamine what «contemporary» means today. It was not meant to signal a mere time category but to serve as a way to relate to the music of the 20th and 21st centuries: to modernism, the avant-garde, as well as to the ruptures and continuities that still shape our experience of sound. In this line of thinking, the Contemporary Music Days Festival does not propose a single aesthetic or a linear narrative but rather an open field of coexistence in which different readings of the past and present are continually recaptured. Special emphasis will be placed on tributes to György Kurtág (marking his 100th anniversary), Georges Aperghis (celebrating his 80th anniversary), and György Ligeti (commemorating the 20th anniversary of his death), which bring emblematic works of contemporary music back to the foreground, not as historical references but as contemporary touchstones from which the new commissions draw material, inspiration, and artistic vision. The collaborations with the ERT Choir and the Greek Composers' Union enhance the logic of an expanded ecosystem in which contemporary music is shaped by networks of people, ensembles, and institutions» notes Ioannis Angelakis.

8 November 2026 · Starts at 20.30

Music direction Markellos Chryssicos

Theano Papadaki soprano

Nikos Nikopoulos,^? Nafsika Tsara flutes, Christina Pantelidou oboe, Kostas Tzekos,^*Spyros Tzekos clarinets, Guido de Flaviis saxophone, Dimitris Dakovanos bassoon, Spiros Laskaridis trumpet, Giannis Gounaris French horn

Andreas-Roland Theodorou trombone, Panagiotis Tziotis violin, Angela Giannaki viola, Alexandros Botinis, Dimitris Travlos^? cellos, Nikos Tsoukalas double bass, Marios Nikolaou, Babis Taliadouros percussion, Stefanos Nasos, Christos Sakellaridis piano, Markellos Chryssicos harpsichord

To mark the 80th anniversary of the birth of Georges Aperghis, Ergon Ensemble presents a concert dedicated to a composer who profoundly reshaped the relationship between music, speech and theatrical action.

In La nuit en tete, Teeter-Totter and Triple, voice, movement, and sound intertwine in a musical act in which the performers function simultaneously as musicians and dramatic characters. Space, the body, and gesture acquire a compositional role equal to that of sound itself.

The 'Paris' of the title refers not only to a city, but to a broader musical and artistic imaginary. From Debussy to Xenakis and Aperghis, a tradition emerges that approaches sound not as an abstract construction, but as a physical, embodied, and often theatrical event. In Claude Debussy's Syrinx, breath and timbre become vehicles of dramatic expression, while in Phlegra, Charisma and Keren by Iannis Xenakis, sound acquires an intense materiality and an architectural presence.

Through these different approaches, the concert brings to the fore questions that have shaped the music of the 20th and 21st centuries: the relationship between sound and the body, the dramaturgy of performance and the role of space in shaping the act of listening. The works on the programme thus emerge as different facets of a shared inquiry, one that finds in the music of Georges Aperghis one of its most fully realised and distinctive expressions.