Alternative Stage Founding Donor

Major Sponsor of the Greek National Opera

From Beethoven and the era of grand musical subversions to contemporary readings of the historical repertoire, the Early Music Days festival invites audiences on a journey through emblematic works, period instruments, and fresh artistic approaches, highlighting the timeless power of musical creation. The programme is divided into two thematic cycles.

The First Cycle, titled «The Age of Revolutions» and curated by the versatile and highly prolific artist Dimos Goudaroulis, is dedicated to Ludwig van Beethoven and his creative entourage. It will feature music from the late 18th and early 19th centuries, spanning Classicism to Early Romanticism, with masterworks of chamber music by Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Franz Schubert, performed on period instruments by prominent Greek and European musicians.

The Second Cycle, titled «Active Pasts» and curated by distinguished conductor Markellos Chryssicos, is grounded in the belief that Early Music is not an outdated fossil but an active field of listening and reinterpretation that continues to generate new meanings even today. In this context, new commissions from Greek composers, jazz interpretations of Bach's variations, electronic sounds, and sound and lighting design create a seamless artistic setting in which the historical material is reactivated.

FIRST CYCLE • The Age of Revolutions

■ Prince Esterházy's baryton and Beethoven's violoncellists | 19 November 2026

Christophe Coin baryton, violoncello, Miguel da Silva viola, Dimos Goudaroulis violoncello

Christophe Coin, one of the most important violoncellists and gambists of our time, joins forces with the French-Swiss violist Miguel da Silva, founder of the famous Ysa?e quartet, and the Greek violoncellist Dimos Goudaroulis. The three musicians present an exceptionally rare chamber music repertoire of unique sophistication and virtuosity. The programme includes two of the 126 trios for baryton, viola, and violoncello composed by Joseph Haydn from 1765 to 1775 for the music enthusiast Prince Nikolaus Esterházy and his favourite instrument. The programme is completed by duets and trios by Antonín Kraft, Jean-Louis Duport, and Bernhard Romberg.

■ Ludwig van Beethoven - Sonatas for violin and fortepiano | 20 November 2026

Shunske Sato violin, Shuann Chai fortepiano

Two exceptional, internationally acclaimed musicians with a defining presence and active involvement in the Early Music scene and its historically informed performances, Shunske Sato on the violin and Shuann Chai on the fortepiano, will present a challenging programme of contrasts dedicated to Beethoven's sonatas for violin and fortepiano.

The luminous Sonata No. 5 in F major, Op. 24 («Spring»), with all its lyricism and optimism, converses with its dark sister, Sonata No. 4 in A minor, Op. 23. The twelve Variations on Mozart's aria «Se vuol ballare» showcase the young Beethoven's virtuosity and freshness, while Sonata No. 7 in C minor, Op. 30, expresses the passion and inner power of his mature style.

■ Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Schubert: String Quintets | 21 November 2026

Shunske Sato, Simos Papanas violin, Emlyn Stam viola, Job ter Haar, Dimos Goudaroulis violoncello

Five leading musicians of the European Early Music Scene, Shunske Sato and Simos Papanas on the violin, Emlyn Stam on the viola, and Job ter Haar and Dimos Goudaroulis on the violoncello, present two emblematic chamber works performed on period instruments. The captivating anonymous adaptation for string quintet with two cellos of the famous «Kreutzer» Sonata, Op. 47 by Ludwig van Beethoven, published in Vienna in 1832 and most probably attributed to the composer himself or to his student and close collaborator Ferdinand Ries, will be presented for the first time in Greece. The programme will conclude with the emblematic string quintet in C major by Franz Schubert, a work of symphonic scale and transcendental beauty, considered one of the most important and masterful chamber music pieces of all time.

■ First part: Songs in Shifting Times - Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven | 22 November 2026

Fanie Antonelou soprano, Gerasimos Hoidas fortepiano

Soprano Fanie Antonelou, accompanied by Gerasimos Hoidas on the fortepiano, will present a rich programme of songs by three leading composers who redefined the late 18th-century musical landscape, transporting us to the heart of a period marked by significant changes and aesthetic upheavals.

■ Second part: Beethoven - septet | 22 November 2026

Sebastian Kürzl period clarinet, Alexandros Economou period bassoon, Kostas Siskos natural horn, Faidon Miliadis violin, David Bogorad viola, Alexis Karaiskakis violoncello, Ioannis Babaloukas double bass

Six exceptional Greek musicians, along with guest German clarinetist Sebastian Kürzl, will perform Beethoven's famous Septet for winds and strings, Op. 20, on period instruments. The Septet, one of the most beloved and captivating works from Beethoven's youthful period, debuted in Vienna in 1800, immediately achieved unprecedented success, and became highly popular, perhaps overshadowing other, subsequent chamber works of his for a time.

SECOND CYCLE • Active Pasts | 25, 26, 27, 28, 29 November 2026

■ Timoleon and Julia: A Baroque Story of Cross-Dressing | 25 November 2026

In collaboration with the National Theatre of Greece

Works by Jean-Henri d'Anglebert, Robert de Visée, Michel Lambert, Jean-Baptiste Lully, Michel Richard de Lalande

Supervising director: Argyro Chioti • Concept, musical direction: Markellos Chryssicos • Dramaturgy, translation: TBA | Nicolò Balducci, Sophia Patsi voices, Andreas Linos viola da gamba, Iason Ioannou violoncello, Theodoros Kitsos theorbe

Long before he became a prominent figure in letters and was admitted to the French Academy, François-Timoléon de Choisy was dressed as a little girl by his mother to entertain the brother of Louis XIV, later known as Philippe, Duke of Orléans. Long before she became a singer for Lully at the Paris Opera, Jully d'Aubigny made her living by giving sword-fighting demonstrations dressed as a man. Against the backdrop of the French Grand Siècle, the adventurous and humorous stories of these two figures come to life on stage, through the literature and pulp fiction of the time.

■ Stravaganza | 26 November 2026

Works by Panos Iliopoulos, Sigismondo d'India, Giovanni de Macque, Pomponio Nenna, Jacopo Peri, Carlo Gesualdo, Giovanni Maria Trabaci, and others.

Kristia Michael voice, Alexis Mastichiadis clavichord, organ, harpsichord, electronics, Nikos Veliotis electric violoncello, electronics

The collaboration among these three musicians crafts a ritualistic soundscape that blends the Neapolitan School of the early 17^th century with contemporary experimental sound. Early Baroque Neapolitan music is regarded as highly groundbreaking to this day because its bold harmonies, extreme chromaticism, and expressive tension seem to transcend the historical limitations of its time. Distinctive works by composers such as Gesualdo, d'India, de Macque, Trabaci, and Peri are blended with sonic influences from drones, noise, and electroacoustic distortions.

The Baroque repertoire is interwoven with pieces by the musicians themselves, as well as with a new work by Panos Iliopoulos, commissioned by the GNO Alternative Stage.

■ VOLKS: LIEDER: ABEND - Songs by Johannes Brahms| 27 November 2026

Iason Marmaras voice, fortepiano

«My first Liederabend, my first evening of Romantic songs, was born beneath the plane trees of Pelion, amidst the summer inebriation of the Centaurs' land. This second evening seeks its melodies in the vast German forests and its fairy tales along the banks of the Rhine River, which were still brimming with ghosts and lore in the 19^th century.

In Brahms' hands, folk songs are sweetly and softly transformed into small diamonds, taking on an almost indecipherable quality within his cavernous harmonic writing: Their melodies, like ancient rocks, darken within a peculiar gloom, whose stalactites glimmer in the slightest light, and in whose depths even the brightest light sinks and is ultimately lost. Among the Volkslieder, interpolated improvisations on the fortepiano and wordless songs will disperse their dark melancholy.- Iason Marmaras

■ J.S. Bach: Goldberg Variations | 27 November 2026

Nikolas Anadolis piano

Perhaps no other elements of Early Music are more representative than improvisation and variation, two traits that effortlessly bridge Baroque music and Jazz. Along these lines, pianist Nikolas Anadolis explores J. S. Bach's monumental Keyboard Practice Consisting Of An Aria With Thirty Variations, more widely known as the Goldberg Variations. Improvising in turn on the great composer's recorded improvisations, Nikolas Anadolis offers us a jazz concert while remaining true to the letter and spirit of Baroque music.

■ Tristan | 28 November 2026

Works by Bernart de Ventadorn, Guillaume de Machaut, Thanos Polymeneas-Liontiris, and others.

Concept, musical direction, medieval flutes: Dimitris Kountouras

Theodora Baka voice, Irini Bilini-Moraiti voice, medieval vielle, percussion, Elektra Miliadou medieval vielle, Chrysanthos Christodoulou electronics, sound design

The archetypal medieval story of Tristan, associated in literature with the King Arthur cycle and the Holy Grail, has inspired all art forms to this day and has gained wide recognition through Richard Wagner's work. The performance contrasts medieval music played on period instruments with electronics and contemporary musical compositions. The programme includes works by Bernart de Ventadorn and Guillaume de Machaut; a polyphonic piece from the Bamberg Codex (13th century); works from the French and Scandinavian traditions; and a composition for a medieval ensemble with electronics by composer Thanos Polymeneas-Liontiris, commissioned by the GNO Alternative Stage.

■ Camino medieval: The Long Pilgrimage Of Faith | 29 November 2026

Tobias Schlierf voice, harp, medieval vielle, organistrum, organetto krummhorns, gemshorns • Florian Zimmermann, video design • Raphael Schlierf, assistant to the video designer

The concert «Camino medieval: The Long Pilgrimage Of Faith» reconstructs a historical journey through the «Way of Saint James.» It refers to a network of pilgrimage routes that, starting from various cities in Europe, end at the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain. This Cathedral houses the relics of Saint James and has been a major pilgrimage destination since its construction in the 11th century, highlighting, through the journeys and personal experiences of each pilgrim, a broader network of humanism and cultural exchange. Through original texts, melodies, liturgical hymns, voices, medieval instruments, and video projections, we will follow Tobias Schlierf on his 850-km-long journey, with each piece also marking a stop on an inward journey and offering an experience that bridges the past and the present. The performance will feature works from the Codex Calixtinus and the Las Huelgas Codex, as well as pieces by Guillaume (William) IX d'Aquitaine and Theobald of Navarre, among others.