Alternative Stage Founding Donor
Major Sponsor of the Greek National Opera
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.
In detail, the schedule for the Contemporary Music Days has been arranged as follows:
25 October 2026 • Starts at 19.30
Works by: Nikos Galenianos, Yannis Kyriakides, Michalis Paraskakis, Eleni Ralli, Jani Christou
Musical direction: Kornilios Selamsis
X: Michalis Paraskakis (voice), Ana Kifou (flute), Eirini Amantiadou (clarinet), Rea Pikiou (bassoon), Charis Pazaroulas (double bass), Panagiotis Zavras (percussion), Sissi Makropoulou (harp), Mislav Režić (electric guitar), Katerina Konstantourou (piano), Stamatis Pasopoulos (accordion)
Niki Lada soprano, Daphne Heretakis, prerecorded voice, Kristia Michael, Emilianos Stamatakis voice | Pantelis Lykoudis saxophone, George Krimperis trombone, Rrezarta Kruja violin
comes to the Alternative Stage with a programme around topoi (places), real or invented, where we return through memory or take refuge through imagination. Five works constitute five paths that the ensemble has taken since 2017, when it began its journey. Eva's Dream, based on John Milton's Paradise Lost, is an allegory about everyone's paradise. The Musicians of Dourgouti takes as its starting point the musical life of the 1950s in Dourgouti (today, Neos Kosmos, Athens). In Certain Sensations are Slumber, a confined woman creates sounds with which she experiences times and places outside her present confinement. Hide Yourself Behind the Curtain seeks routes and paths of communication between the musicians and the space. In Six Songs on Poems by T. S. Eliot the poet takes pictures of his past while the third song, 'Mélange adultère de tout', is a self-mocking wandering around the places where he found himself during his life.
With the support of the Greek Composers' Union
■ Sayings and Cracks: A tribute to György Kurtág
29 October 2026 • Starts at 20.30
Fanie Antonelou voice, Giorgos Konstantinou piano
At the centre of the performance stand The Sayings of Péter Bornemisza, op. 7 by György Kurtág, presented in English translation-a landmark work of postwar Hungarian music, widely regarded as one of the most significant compositions written after Bartók.
Across 45 minutes of intensely concentrated writing, Kurtág creates a singular concerto for voice and piano: twenty-four miniature movements arranged in four cycles- Confession, Sin, Death, Spring-in which the words of the persecuted 16th-century Hungarian preacher Péter Bornemisza are transformed into an almost explosive physical and psychological event.
Where Bornemisza Cracks, a new work by Stylianos Dimou commissioned by the GNO, enters into direct dialogue with Kurtág's composition. Nine miniatures alternating between acoustic and mixed electroacoustic writing emerge within the 'cracks' between the work's movements, while four recorded recitations by the soprano, in Greek translation, introduce each cycle.
The new work engages with sonic fragments of the Hungarian language and semantic traces of the Greek: language becomes sound, and sound assumes linguistic behaviour. Through a similarly ascetic and laconic density, the electroacoustic material inhabits, reshapes, and expands the sonic space. Kurtág's microcosm-his insistence on the small as ontologically charged-continues here within a different sonic ecology.
■ Sonic Complexities: A tribute to György Ligeti
30 October 2026 • Starts at 20.30
P 4 2: Beata Pincetić, Christos Sakellaridis piano
Marking the 20th anniversary of the death of Hungarian composer György Ligeti, piano duo P 4 2 (Beata Pincetić - Christos Sakellaridis) explore their singular sonic universe through works for one and two pianos. In Ligeti's music, complexity is not imposed but unfolds organically: patterns that repeat and continuously shift gradually transform into a labyrinth governed by its own undeniable inner order-a musical language as vibrant and inexhaustible as fractals. It is with this language that Fractus impetus by Vasiliki Legaki, for piano duo and electronics, enters into dialogue. Commissioned by the GNO, the work is presented in its world premiere performance.
31 October 2026 • Starts at 20.30
Samples, programming: Tasos Rosopoulos
Tassis Christoyannis voice, Korina Vougiouka guitar, Alexandros Botinis violoncello
A single musical narrative about longing and the hard road home. The journey begins with nostos, the ache for return, but gradually reaches beyond any place on the map, until the wear and change that time brings become the ultimate measure of experience.
The steps quicken at times and falter at others, caught between Anticipation and Longing, Doubt, Fear, Sorrow and Delay. Each step has to face the past, its own purpose and the test of one's roots.
The organic warmth of the human voice and of wooden instruments meets an otherworldly electronic landscape, while recordings of real footsteps in natural surroundings form the inner pulse of this journey back.
The cycle's text draws on poems, translations, and stray words and phrases by Myrsini Gkana, Kostas Ouranis, Giorgos Koropoulis, Dionysis Kapsalis, Yiannis Skarimbas, Andreas Embirikos, Giorgos Sarantaris, Homer, an anonymous 16th-century Cypriot poet, Wilhelm Müller and Emily Dickinson.
■ Poetic Soundscapes: The ERT Choir joins forces with the Greek Composers' Union
1 November 2026 • Starts at 18.00
Works by Maria Gouvali, Kostas Pantelidis, Evangelos Kokkoris, Nikos Panagiotakis, Yiannis Drositis, Roxani Chatzidimitriou, Fani Kosona, George Dousis
ERT Choir
Conductor Michalis Papapetrou
Thanos Margetis piano
A collaboration dedicated to contemporary Greek choral creation and to new sonic approaches to poetic language.
For the first time, the ERT Choir joins forces with the Greek Composers' Union, turning the spotlight on contemporary Greek choral music, the artistic explorations of today's composers, and the ways in which these engage in dialogue with the traditional choral repertoire.
The concert presents works by members of the Greek Composers' Union that approach the human voice beyond conventional expressive boundaries. The composers treat the choir as a multidimensional sonic body, employing extended vocal techniques, layered textures, and complex sound structures that redefine the choral sound of the 21st century.
At the heart of the evening lies a contemporary acoustic reading of poetry. Rather than merely setting texts to music, the musical language deconstructs and reassembles speech itself, transforming vowels, consonants, and the internal rhythm of the texts into pure musical material.
Under the musical direction of Michalis Papapetrou, the ERT Choir performs works based on emblematic texts by major figures of Greek and world literature, including Dionysios Solomos, Odysseas Elytis, Tasos Leivaditis, Andreas Karkavitsas, William Blake and William Butler Yeats.
Different historical periods, poetic traditions, and philosophical currents converge under a shared contemporary sonic prism, revealing the enduring power of language when transformed into a living musical act.
Composition Competition - Winners' Award Concert & Ceremony
1 November 2026 • Starts at 20.00
Judges Michalis Economou, Kharálampos Goyós, Eleni Ralli, Zesses Seglias, Georgia Spyropoulou
Conductor Maria Bazou
EnA - Enosis Atelier: Marilena Kyriakopoulou soprano, Theodora Iordanidouflute, Dimitris Vamvas oboe, Spyros Tzekos clarinet, Dimitris Dakovanos bassoon, Giannis Gounaris French horn, Brunilda Malo violin, Ilias Livieratos viola, Sofia Efklidou cello, Konstantinos Sifakis double bass
This year sees the launch of Re:Trace, a new international composition competition initiated by the Greek Composers' Union with the support of the Greek National Opera. Each edition will be devoted to a leading figure in contemporary music.
In 2026 the musical world marks the centenary of György Kurtág, a composer who redefined musical expression through radical economy and the power of silence. To celebrate the occasion, the first Re:Trace International Composition Competition is dedicated to him. It focuses on the essential qualities of his aesthetic: the beauty of the fragment, the intensity of the fleeting gesture, and music as a relic of memory.
■ The Revolt of the Double Bass: From Myth to Logos
3 November 2026 • Starts at 20.30
Works by Oswald Amiralis, Sofia Gubaidulina, Kaija Saariaho, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Beat Furrer, and excerpts from films by Georges Lautner and Bernard Lowles
Emily Tsimidaki soprano
Spyros Arkoudis trumpet, Oswald Amiralis double bass, Marinos Tranoudakis percussion, Ersilia Mikrou harp
This concert presents works in which the double bass moves from its traditional role as accompanist to the centre of the musical action, becoming a vehicle for speech, reflection and dramatic presence.
Rather than functioning as conventional technical studies, Gubaidulina's études explore different sound worlds across their five short movements through the interplay of harp, double bass and percussion.
In Stockhausen's piece, trumpet and double bass engage in an intensely focused dialogue in which resonance, articulation, dynamics and a sense of space are fundamental musical parameters. The title Halt refers to an interruption in the flow of sound that does not entail a halt in time itself. The black cape and hat act as theatrical signs that set the double bassist apart from the image of the conventional orchestral musician.
Kaija Saariaho creates a delicate, hypnotic soundscape inspired by the image of a starry sky. Each bar is conceived as a 'star', a unique sonic object. The double bass provides a dark, deep sonic foundation, while the percussion introduces isolated flashes of sound like stars in the night sky.
The poem by the Spanish poet José Ángel Valente recalls the myth of the Lotus-eaters, whose seductive oblivion erases every tie to the past and every wish to return. Furrer turns this idea into sound within a fragile soundscape of whispers, microtonal deviations, harmonics, tremolos, glissandos and unstable rhythmic reflections. Language shatters, words appear and disappear, and identity itself becomes unstable.
Finally, Dans la nuit des temps calls up tender memories, loves and passions. It evokes the unequal struggle with time, the existential anxieties of a distant world, strange battles, a melancholy born of the painful sense of the ephemeral, loneliness and serenity.
■ Places, Memories, Sirens: Cello Recital
4 November 2026 • Starts at 20.30
Works by Thomas Adès, Felix Mendelssohn, Euripides Bekos, Frank Bridge
Arne Zeller cello, Jacopo Giovannini piano
The programme traces a journey through landscapes alternately recalled by memory and shaped by imagination. In Mendelssohn's Second Sonata for cello and piano, the music unfolds with the clarity and vitality of a Romantic journey; Bridge's Sonata leads into more enigmatic emotional territories, where lyricism gradually yields to introspection and intensity. In Adès's Lieux retrouvés ('Rediscovered Places'), waters, mountains, fields, and cities are transformed through the filter of memory, while Euripides Bekos's Thelxinoë-a new work commissioned by the Greek National Opera and receiving its world premiere-draws its inspiration from the so called Siren of Greek mythology, whose song enchants the mind through sound. Despite their different points of departure, the four works converge in their exploration of places that exist simultaneously in the world, in memory, and in imagination. By placing a new commission in dialogue with cornerstone works of the cello repertoire, the Alternative Stage affirms its commitment to connecting contemporary music with the great works of the traditional repertoire.
The concert is presented as part of the award granted to Arne Zeller, Grand Prix winner of the 2025 Budapest International Cello Competition, in collaboration between the Greek National Opera and the competition.
■ The Cabinet of Dr Caligari Revisited
5 November 2026 • Starts at 20.30
Music Nikos Karagiannis
Celluloid Ensemble: Nikos Karagiannis violin I, Marianthi Karagianni violin II, Stelios Papanastasis viola, Nikolas Prevezianos cello
The string quartet Celluloid Ensemble draws us into the dark and mysterious world of Dr Caligari, the hypnotist who spreads terror across a small German town. A groundbreaking milestone of German Expressionist cinema, the film Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari (The Cabinet of Dr Caligari) is presented through the musical lens of Nikos Karagiannis. The composer adds a new dimension to the work, enriching Robert Wiene's black-and-white masterpiece with contemporary musical colour. This revisited version seeks to immerse the audience in the film's grotesque universe, draw them into its haunting atmosphere, and, through its suspenseful narrative, lead them toward its enigmatic finale.
■ Flowers We Are: A tribute to György Kurtág
6 November 2026 • Starts at 20.30
Works by Kostas Zisimopoulos, György Kurtág, Johann Sebastian Bach / György Kurtág
Nikos Laaris, Alexandra Papastefanou piano
On the occasion of György Kurtág's 100th birthday, this concert sheds light on the unique musical universe of one of the most important composers of post-war music. A poet of silence, gesture and musical abstraction, Kurtág continues, more than five decades after their first publication in 1973, to expand his emblematic Játékok (Games) - an open-ended cycle of brief musical fragments that resemble personal diaries or sonic imprints of memory and emotion.
At the heart of the programme is the cycle Virág az ember... (Flowers We Are...), fifteen miniatures for solo piano, piano four hands and two pianos, in which simplicity is transformed into a deeply moving experience. Alongside them, fifteen extraordinary transcriptions of chorales by Johann Sebastian Bach reveal Kurtág's timeless dialogue with the spirituality of Bach's music.
The programme also features a new work by Kostas Zisimopoulos, commissioned by the Greek National Opera, which engages directly with Kurtág's fragile and suggestive musical world.
7 November 2026 • Starts at 18.30
Works by Giorgos Koumendakis, Claude Debussy, Gérard Pesson, Domenico Scarlatti, Maurice Ravel
Stéphanos Thomopoulos piano
This recital explores the piano music of Giorgos Koumendakis, centred on his cycle Mediterranean Desert and complemented by works from different periods of his career. In Stéphanos Thomopoulos' hands, the programme unfolds as a single narrative in which nature, memory and soundscape are in constant dialogue.
At its heart is Mediterranean Desert, a cycle in which the animals, plants and organic textures of the Mediterranean landscape become sonic objects and musical miniatures. From Mediterranean fish and herbs to delicate portraits of insects and tiny organisms, nature is rendered as a finely detailed, almost microscopic world of sound.
Alongside it, landmark works of the piano repertoire serve as points of reference and contrast: Ravel's Gaspard de la nuit, Debussy's 'La Cathédrale engloutie' and sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti. The recital ends with a work by Gérard Pesson, which places contemporary European writing within the same reflective frame.
7 November 2026 • Starts at 20.30
Works by Ulvi Cemal Erkin, Yannis Constantinidis, Christos Papageorgiou, Maurice Ravel, Cemal Re?it Rey, Tasos Rosopoulos
Miranda Makrynioti mezzo-soprano, Michalis Papapetrou piano
Michalis Papapetrou, conductor and music director of the ERT Choir, and Miranda Makrynioti, a regular of the Greek National Opera, present a song recital inspired by the age-old artistic dialogue between East and West. The programme features works by Maurice Ravel, Yannis Constantinidis, Cemal Re?it Rey, Ulvi Cemal Erkin, Tasos Rosopoulos and Christos Papageorgiou.
Folk traditions of the Eastern Mediterranean as heard through art music, French Impressionism's vision of the legendary Scheherazade and the melodies of the Greek world of Asia Minor come together in a distinctive programme that includes Greek premieres and rarely performed works.
At a time when the relationship between East and West is being re-examined, the programme asks a central question: how has this gaze changed today? In the multicultural Europe of the 21st century, different worlds live side by side, under the weight of history and its lingering stereotypes. The works on the programme reflect this dialogue, almost prophetically, in a rich interplay of contrasts and affinities.
■ Ergon Ensemble: Aperghis' Paris - A tribute to Georges Aperghis
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 t?te, 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.
■ New Generation - New Paths: Recitals for three young soloists
10 November 2026 • Starts at 18.00, 19.00, 20.00
Works by Christos Kaklamanis, Franz Liszt, Johann Sebastian Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven, Minas Borboudakis, Frédéric Chopin, Philippos Tsalahouris, Costas Tsougras, Joseph Haydn
Thodoris Filippopoulos, Michael-Efthymios Chalkias, Christos Kaklamanis piano
The Greek National Opera Alternative Stage opens its doors to the next generation, presenting three exceptionally young soloists who are already shaping their own artistic identities with remarkable professional maturity.
These young performers take on iconic works from the piano repertoire while also engaging with contemporary compositions by Greek composers, highlighting the presence of contemporary music within tradition as well as the fresh perspective that the next generation brings to this living artistic process. Theodoros Filippopoulos performs a work by Philippos Tsalahouris, Michail-Efthymis Chalkias performs a work by Costas Tsougras, while Christos Kaklamanis presents a work by Minas Borboudakis as well as his own Piano Sonata, receiving its world premiere. Through these three artistic journeys, new voices of the Greek music scene emerge, conveying a sense of vibrant continuity that creates space for new talents and bridges the present with the musical tradition.
Free admission with priority vouchers
■ Greek Percussion Group: Percussion works by Greek composers
11 November 2026 • Starts at 20.30
Works by Georges Aperghis, Giorgos Vavoulas, Giorgos Koumendakis, Minas Borboudakis, Stamatis Pasopoulos, Christos Hatzis
Greek Percussion Group: Costas Seremetis, Marinos Tranoudakis Theo Vazakas, Panagiotis Ziavras, percussion
The newly founded Greek Percussion Group makes its first official appearance at the GNO Alternative Stage with a wide-ranging programme of contemporary music for percussion by Greek composers.
The programme brings together different musical languages, in which rhythmic energy, theatricality and sonic exploration exist on an equal footing. It moves through a sequence of shifting sound worlds. Giorgos Koumendakis' Typewriter Tune explores memory and the transformation of sound through references to Greek tradition. Georges Aperghis' Retrouvailles is physical and theatrical, and Christos Hatzis' Quantum Transitions opens a contemplative sonic space.
Minas Borboudakis' Unisono highlights the collective precision and rhythmic intensity of two performers playing together, while Stamatis Pasopoulos' NIGRÁ explores the relationship between solo percussion and electronic tape.
The concert also includes a new work by Giorgos Vavoulas, commissioned by the GNO Alternative Stage, which confirms the vitality of new writing for percussion today.
12 November 2026 • Starts at 20.30
In co-operation with the Istituto Italiano di Cultura di Atene
Works by Alessandro Annunziata, Gianluca Cangemi, Giacomo Cuticchio, Dimitris Nikolaou, Nikos Skalkottas
Guido de Flaviis soprano saxophone, Stathis Mavrommatis alto saxophone, Michele Gerardi tenor saxophone, Nicola Mogavero baritone saxophone
This concert is inspired by the repertoire for saxophone quartet by contemporary Greek and Italian composers. At its centre is Dimitri Nicolau, a Greek-born composer who became an Italian citizen and who devoted an extensive, multilayered body of work to the saxophone, including numerous pieces for quartet.
Around him unfolds a network of works for saxophone quartet by leading contemporary composers, including Alessandro Annunziata, Giacomo Cuticchio, Gianluca Cangemi and Giorgos Koumendakis. Some of these pieces were written especially for this ensemble. The programme also includes an original transcription of three dances by Nikos Skalkottas for saxophone quartet.
The musical idea reflects the story of Magna Graecia, a region whose history and culture have forged an unbreakable bond between Sicily and Greece, the homelands of the ensemble's four musicians.
■ 19 Years of ARTéfacts ensemble
13 November 2026 • Starts at 20.30
ARTéFACTS ENSEMBLE: Spyros Tzekos clarinet, Guido De Flaviis saxophone, Laertis Kokolanis violin, Ilias Sdoukos viola, Theo Vazakas, Costas Seremetis percussion, Pavlos Antoniadis piano
Louizos Aslanidis video designer, stage director
The concert brings together works by Greek composers written for the ARTéfacts ensemble over the past 15 years, forming a polyphonic landscape of contemporary musical writing, aesthetic directions, and performative attitudes. From physicality and the detailed treatment of sound to humour, irony, and the destabilisation of the concert format itself, the works in the programme reflect different modes of listening and different relationships to the present moment.
Through works connected to earlier trajectories of the ensemble-from Kornilios Selamsis' Jeune Homme allongé sur le coté. Silence to Manos Ventouras' sardonic O Paragontas and Dimitris Andrikopoulos' Traces-the concert highlights a consistent artistic approach: one that engages with contemporary music rigorously and with precision, yet without rigidity or self-important seriousness. Some of the works were originally presented abroad and are heard in Athens for the first time, while others return through new readings and contexts, shaping a program that approaches contemporary music as a living experience-immediate, unpredictable, humorous, and deeply hum
14 November 2026 • Starts at 20.30
Works by György Kurtág, György Ligeti, Ismini Beck
Conductor: Nicolas Vassiliou
Marietta Sarri soprano
Ioanna Vrakatseli mezzo-soprano
Vagelis Maniatis baritone
Ergon Ensemble: Nikos Nikopoulos flute, Kostas Tzekos clarinet, Manos Ventouras French horn, Kostas Panagiotidis violin, Dimitris Travlos cello, Nikos Tsoukalas double bass, Marios Nikolaou, Babis Taliadouros percussion
Stefanos Nasos, Christos Sakellaridis piano
The programme explores the fragile threshold where language stops signifying and begins to be heard. In the works of György Ligeti and György Kurtág, speech is broken down into vocal traces, gestures and pure sonic energy. From the surreal theatricality of Nouvelles Aventures and the dark operatic universe of Le Grand Macabre to the extreme economy of Kurtág's songs, language is fragmented and reshaped as sound.
Set between these works is Building Through Fragments, a new piece by Ismini Beck commissioned by the Greek National Opera and presented here in its world premiere. It consists of four short 'islands' that act as interstitial fissures, reflections and transitions within the soundscape.
The concert does not follow a linear narrative. Instead, it forms a single dramaturgical continuum in which the works pass through one another, linked by an underlying thread of listening. Through fragmentation and interruption, apparent discontinuity takes shape and becomes a shared sonic universe, where the fragment becomes structure and structure becomes the experience of listening.
In the meeting of a new work with cornerstones of the modernist repertoire, an idea emerges: contemporary musical language does not stand against tradition but grows from within it, as continuation, transformation and rupture all at once.
