The Alternative Stage of the Greek National Opera presents the new ambitious production A Greek Songbook,  a Greek collection of songs for the bicentennial of the Greek Revolution of 1821. Over 30 creators from the fields of art music and popular music and the performing arts create bold compositions, songs and images. A Greek Songbook will be presented in three concerts on the GNO Alternative Stage at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center on 19, 20 and 21 November 2021.

A Greek Songbook’s creative team consists of: Yannis Angelakas, K.Bhta, Savina Yannatou, Foivos Delivorias, Sofia Zafeiriou / Georgia Karydi, Fanis Zachopoulos, Nalyssa Green, Dimitris Kamarotos / Amalia Moutoussi, Pavlos Katsivelis / MC Yinka, Apostolos Kitsos, Petros Klampanis, Lolek, James Wiley / Giannis Dionysiou, Dimitri Papageorgiou, Michalis Paraskakis, Vasilis Magouliotis, Pavlos Pavlidis, Giorgos Poulios, Euripides Laskaridis, Blaine L. Reininger, Filippos Sakagian, Michalis Siganidis, Fotis Siotas /Thodoris Gonis, Nicolas Tzortzis, Marcin Habela, Martha Frintzila / Vassilis Mantzoukis, Nicoleta Chatzopoulou. Conductor: Nicolas Vassiliou. With the participation of the vocal ensemble chórεs and a fifteen-member musical ensemble.

This production, part of a tribute to the 2021 bicentennial of the Greek Revolution, is made possible by a grant from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) [www.SNF.org] 

Necessarily then do artistic operations imitate nature and art-works imitate things that exist in nature. — St Thomas Aquinas

Assembled in three concert programmes, the building blocks of the Songbook (themselves divided into three categories: songs, instrumental compositions and video art works) leverage a wide spectrum of creators from the fields of «art» and «popular» music, whose only common feature is the incompatibility (under normal circumstances) of their aesthetic and technical approaches. Without otherwise attempting to disguise its innate contradictions, the resultant material is being streamlined at the level of its sonic materialisation by the use of three instrumental quartets («folk», «classical» and «pop»), each with its own unique connotations, resulting in a confrontational configuration that endeavours to formally render the slew of heterogeneous streams commingled in the cultural and political crucible of 1821.

The project is founded on the common use by all participants of a body of curated historical material (texts, tunes or narrations) directly or indirectly related to persons and events of the Greek War of Independence – a fragmentary landscape of singing ruins, around which the descendants may build their contemporary superstructure.

Composer Kornilios Selamsis notes about A Greek Songbook: “A Greek Songbook is not a book. It is an assemblage of musical compositions, songs and images commissioned from music and performing arts workers as part of the Greek National Opera Alternative Stage’s programming for 2021. The definition of this non-book as Greek is associated with the root of the word itself -Greece-, since exactly two hundred years ago this word was established as our national, geographical and spiritual conscience, if I may say so. It was precisely for this era, when Greece was established as a notion, that composers and other arts workers were called upon to reflect and create works at times based on association of ideas and distant, and at times referential and tightly attached to historical, poetic, musical or narrative sources. A Greek Songbook is therefore a gathering of people crafting art works. They all come from very different places. From different practices and ideologies. It is a gathering that doesn’t intend to create a blend of each different person’s own styles; on the contrary, it attempts to let the aesthetic frictions be visible and not mitigate sensory contrasts. The only practical limitations of the commissions had to do with each work’s duration and the variety of means (instruments, objects etc.) that could be used during the live concert performance.”

Kornilios Selamsis Curator, arranger, conductor (A Confessor Dishonours a Maiden, Capodistrias’ Potatoes, Hierotic Song, Krifo Scholio ΙΙ, Thronged, Heterotopia, Reflect, and It Is Enough, komuna – Dimitris Balis and the Andros Commune, Synecdochai, Vents contraires, Laskarina Bouboulina, River of Blood, FIRST STASIMON, and I Saw Light)

Born in Athens in 1981. During the period 2004-2010, he lived in the Netherlands and studied composition at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague. A big part of his work consists of incidental music for theatre, for many productions in Greece and abroad. Works of his have been commissioned and played by several ensembles and organisations in Greece and abroad. His opera Leonce and Lena and his installation Agathophron for 40 audio sources were performed at the Athens Epidaurus Festival in 2016 and 2018 respectively. In addition to his compositional work, he has worked as an artistic programmer and manager of educational programmes. From May 2014 to May 2016, he was the artistic director of the Parallel Tuesdays concert series at the Porta Theatre, Athens. In November 2015, after an invitation from the National Theatre of Greece, he created the Theatre Music Composition workshop, where he worked until June 2020.

Born in Neapoli, Thessaloniki, in 1959. He is a singer, songwriter and poet. Best known as the lead singer of the Greek rock band Trypes (1984-2001). With Trypes, he released seven albums. He has recorded with Nikos Veliotis, Giorgos Karras, Thanasis Papakonstantinou, Giorgos Christianakis. He has written music for the feature films Killing Season (dir. Nikos Grammatikos), Earth & Water (Panos Karkanevatos, music with Asklipios Zambetas and Giorgos Christianakis), The Loser Takes It All (Nikos Nikolaidis), A Soul So Deep (Pantelis Voulgaris), for which he won the original music award at the 2010 Hellenic Film Academy Awards, as well as for the documentary Debtocracy (Katerina Kitidi and Aris Chatzistefanou). He has published two poetry collections, Salia, misologa kai trypioi stixoi and Pos tolmas kai nostalgeis tsoglane?. He has written two books, entitled Gia tin kardia enos ktinous 1985-2000 and O megalos mathitis kai o mikros daskalos, for which he was awarded the Audience Award at the Public Book Awards.

Composer, viola da gamba performer and researcher based in Athens, Greece. Her work and academic research during the last few years focuses on sound composition and organisation, the relationship between silence and noise as well as between space and sound. She has composed three chamber operas, vocal works, works for a variety of chamber music ensembles, electroacoustic and algorithmic music, as well as works based on spatial parameters. She studied composition at the Royal Conservatory of the Hague, Astrophysics at the University of Wales in Cardiff and she is currently a PhD candidate of the School of Architecture of the Technical University of Crete in the field of Architecture and Music. She organises and curates projects in her space NGallery and is a founding member of the WAN trio.

Born in Athens in 1973. He is a songwriter, composer, lyricist and performer. He has released seven albums – song collections; his most recent album is Kallithea (2015).

Born and raised in Eleusis, Greece. She studied music and theatre. Since 1993, she has been working as a professional actor at the National Theatre of Greece as well as at municipal and private Greek theatres in productions of ancient and contemporary drama and music theatre. Since 1996, she has worked as a theatre director and collaborated with the National Theatre of Greece, the Athens Epidaurus Festival, the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, the Athens School of Fine Arts, the Neos Kosmos Theatre (Athens), the Poreia Theatre (Athens), the Chora Theatre (Athens), the Music Village in Agios Lavrentios, Pelion (Greece), the Brooklyn Academy of Music (USA), the Princeton University and Stockton University in New Jersey (USA). Since 2015, she has been Professor in Residence at the Theatre Department of the Princeton University. She taught ancient drama at the Princeton Global Seminar (PIIRS) in 2017 and 2019. From 2008 to 2013, she taught acting at the Drama School of the National Theatre of Greece. She is a founding member of the Baumstrasse / Dromos me Dentra (www.dentra.gr) arts and education venue and of the Attiko School of Ancient Greek Drama (www.attikosxoleio.gr). Since 1999, she has been director of the Dromos me Dentra theatre group.

Born in Nafplio, Greece. He is a graduate of the Pelos Katselis Drama School. He studied Economics. He worked as an actor until 1996. Since 1996, he has been active mainly as a stage director. He has cooperated with the National Theatre of Northern Greece, the Athens Epidaurus Festival, Megaron – The Athens Concert Hall, several Municipal and Regional Theatres and independent theatre groups, having directed contemporary and classical plays. He has written and directed many music theatre productions. He was the artistic director of the Agrinio and Serres Municipal and Regional Theatres. Since the summer of 2009, he has been the artistic director of the Philippi Festival and, since 2012, of the Kavala Municipal and Regional Theatre. He has taught acting at the Drama School of the National Theatre of Northern Greece and at the Giorgos Armenis New Hellenic Theatre Drama School. He has collaborated as a lyricist with the most important Greek songwriters. His books are published by Agra, Gavriilidis, Metaixmio. He is a member of the Hellenic Authors’ Society.

She is a composer, songwriter and performer from Athens. She is self-taught, plays piano, guitar, accordion, synthesizer, theremin and sings. She has released four personal albums, two of them in English (Barock, 2010, and The Seed, 2012) and two in Greek (Bloom, 2018, and Taxidi αstriko, 2020). She has written music for many theatrical productions. Important works (as a composer and performer): 4.48 Psychosis (Sarah Kane, Bios, Athens), The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, National Theatre of Greece), Death of a Salesman (Arthur Miller, National Theatre of Greece) The Wild Duck (Henrik Ibsen, Poreia Theatre, Athens), The Exterminating Angel (Luis Buñuel, Athens Epidaurus Festival), Ivona (Witold Gombrowicz, Bageion Theatre, Athens), Τraces of Antigone (Christina Ouzounides, digital show on zoom, Romaeuropa Festival, Operadagen Rotterdam), etc. She is the recipient of two Audience Theatre Awards for Best Music from the Athinorama magazine.

He studied, in Greece and France, composition, clarinet and musicology under Émile Damais, Marc Battier, Maurice Jarre, Iannis Xenakis. He worked at the Institute for Research and Coordination in Acoustics / Music (IRCAM, France) and at the Contemporary Music Research Center, Athens. He participates in the development of theatrical dramaturgy with music and sound design. He has collaborated with many Greek and foreign directors, in 200 productions which have been performed at the National Theatre of Greece, Athens Epidaurus Festival, Volksbühne (Berlin), Comédie-Française (Paris) and other international theatres and festivals. His music moves freely from the instrumental-vocal to the electroacoustic-acousmatic. Recent releases of his works are Electromagnetic Landscapes (Intersonik Recordings 2018) and Aural Phase Alpha (1tracktape 2021).

Apostolos Kitsos Composer, vocals (Hierotic Song), arrangements (To Markos Botsaris, Shelley: Hellas, Laskarina Bouboulina, River of Blood, Byron’s Fever)

Born and raised in Thebes, Greece. He studied at the National Conservatory and the Philippos Nakas Conservatory, Athens, and later at the Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester. In 2013-2014, he distinguished himself as a performer at the Fourth Audition of the Mikri Arktos label, Athens, where he recorded original songs by young composers and participated in a series of concerts and tributes. He collaborated with Elli Paspala and the Underground Youth Orchestra from 2013 to 2016 and with Yannis Markopoulos and the Palintonos Harmony Orchestra in 2015. In December 2017, he released his first personal album entitled Kati Paraxeno on the Mikri Arktos label, a cycle of poems set to music by the songwriter Michalis Kalogerakis as well as himself, in his own arrangements. In 2020, he was the producer and arranger of the album Rimbautika, a marriage of Rimbaud’s poetic world and rebetiko songs.

Director and performer. He studied at the Greek Art Theatre – Karolos Koun and at the Brooklyn College in New York. His work deals with research on transformation and ridiculousness. He has cooperated as a performer with directors such as Dimitris Papaioannou, Robert Wilson, etc. In 2000, he began directing his own work for theatre and short films. In 2009 he founded the OSMOSIS performing arts company, with which he presented work at the Athens Epidaurus Festival, the Embros Theatre, etc. The company’s first touring work, RELIC (2015), has been presented in over thirty festivals and venues worldwide, including the Lyon Biennale de la Danse, the Palais de Tokyo (Paris), the Barbican Pit (London) and the Public Theatre (New York). The tour stops of his work TITANS (2017) included the Théâtre de la Ville (Paris), the Festival TransAmériques (Montreal) and the Hong Kong Arts Festival. His work ELENIT (2019), is an international co-production that premiered at the Onassis Stegi before starting an international tour. In 2016, he was awarded an inaugural Pina Bausch Fellowship.

He was born in 1981 and lives in Athens. He is a composer, lyricist, performer and music producer. At the age of 10, he started learning the accordion lessons, and the guitar and drums. From 1999 to 2007, he participated in the Touched and Bolek & Lolek bands as a drummer and composer. He has released the records Alone (Inner Ear Records, 2009), Achinos (Inner Ear Records, 2011), and Ouranos Molivi (InRealTime Records, 2015). He has composed music for plays, films and animation. In 2015 he received an award for the music of the play Katerina. He collaborates with several music groups as a music producer and sound engineer.

Born in Athens in 1974 and raised in Kalamata. He studied classical guitar, music theory at the Municipal Conservatory of Kalamata and at the Klassiko Conservatory of Cholargos. He studied painting and set design at the Athens School of Fine Arts under Yiannis Psychopedis and Giorgos Ziakas. Since 1999, he has been a composer and stage designer of the Dromos me Dentra theatre group and, since 2009, he has been a composer of the RootlessRoot contemporary dance company. In 2010, with Martha Frintzila, he co-founded the Baumstrasse (www.dentra.gr) arts and education venue in Athens and, in 2012, the Attiko School of Ancient Greek Drama (www.attikosxoleio.gr). Works of his have been presented in theatres and festivals in Europe, Middle East, China, Japan and the USA.

He studied at the University of Music and Dramatic Arts of Graz and completed his PhD at the School of Music University of Iowa. He taught composition master classes at the Universities of Music in Hanover, Graz and at the Departments of the Universities Music of Iowa, Nevada, Tehran and İstanbul (Bilgi University). Since 2017, he has been teaching at the Delian Academy (Greece) and the Tehran International Electronic Music Festival. Since 2019, he has been teaching at the outHEAR New Music Week (Greece). He has appeared in dozens of festivals and concerts in Austria, Germany, Switzerland, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Finland, Russia, Armenia, Greece, Cyprus, Serbia, Croatia, Turkey, Iran, Hong Kong and many states of the USA. He is the artistic co-director of the outHEAR New Music Week, a contemporary music week that takes place in Larissa, Greece, with the participation of the Klangforum Wien (Austria). He teaches composition at the School of Music Studies of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.

Born in Athens. He studied graphic arts as well as music. Subsequently, he focused on music, studying composition, classical and medieval-renaissance singing at the Royal Conservatory of the Hague. Since 2019, he is a PhD candidate at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki on the subject of music theatre research and composition. Works of his have been presented in New York, Vienna, Graz, Paris, Ghent, Amsterdam, Hague, Athens, Thessaloniki, Chania, etc by significant performers such as Klangforum Wien (Austria), ASKO|Schönberg (Germany), Nieuw Ensemble (Netherlands), Momenta Quartet (USA), Enno Poppe, Bas Wiegers. In Greece, he has repeatedly collaborated with the Onassis Stegi and the Greek National Opera as well as significant musicians such as Katerina Konstantourou, Yorgos Ziavras and the dissonArt Ensemble. He has cooperated with theatre and music theatre artists such as Phivos Symeonides, Zoe Chatziantoniou, Manos Vavadakis, Rafi music theatre company, etc. He is a co-founder of the ΤΕΤΤΤΙΞ ensemble, which creates productions focusing on modern and new music.

Greek-Armenian composer, visual artist and Hermeticist based in Paris. His most recent works are characterised by his deep interest in Greek and Zoroastrian archaic traditions and esotericism. He is currently studying composition with Stefano Gervasoni, new technologies with Grégoire Lorieux, Yan Maresz and Luis Naón at the National Conservatory of Music and Dance in Paris (CNSMDP). He participates in the Cursus programme of the Institute for Research and Coordination of Acoustics / Music (IRCAM, France) (2021-2022). He is a member of the Hellenic Electroacoustic Music Composers Association and his music is showcased in various festivals and academies in Argentina, France, Greece, Italy, Mexico, Scotland, Spain and Sweden. He received support by the Meyer Foundation, the Legs Jabès scholarship, the Sacem and the Tarrazi Funds Grants (France).

Born in Thessaloniki, Greece, in 1958. He studied at the National Conservatory of Thessaloniki. He plays the double bass, a five-string guitar and composes dramatised ambient music and images (DAMI) for imaginary and real movies, that can be heard in the records: Brother Junior (1987), The Morning and the Evening (1990), The Phantom-train, a Friend (1995), Ads (1999), Basse classe (2002), Sabbath Lift (2006), Gli Altri (2009), 97% (2014), Gra-Grou (2018), ETIKEETIKETIKETI (2021). He performs his music live with the Lambrakis Complex group. He is a life member of the distinguished Greek bands Heimerinoi Kolymvites and Primavera en Salonico. He made the arrangements for the discs Trackers of Jura – Songs of the Hebrides and The Sun and the Moon – Songs of Samothrace.

Born in Thessaloniki. He took up music at the age of six, as a member of the Agia Triada children’s choir. At the age of nine, he began studying the violin and voice at the State Conservatory of Thessaloniki. He has been a member of several bands from Thessaloniki, such as Podilates, Boomstate and Evi Evan. In 1993, he began his collaboration with Sokratis Malamas and Thanasis Papakonstantinou, performing with them live and on their recordings. He has collaborated with Yannis Angelakas and the Episkeptes group. He has also collaborated with the guitarist Babis Papadopoulos. In 2005, he created the duo Sancho 003 with the guitarist Kostas Pantelis. He has contributed to more than 100 recordings as a violinist, arranger, and singer. He has written music for the Athens Epidaurus Festival, the National Theatre of Greece, the National Theatre of Northern Greece and dozens of stage productions.

He is a composer and teacher (1978). His music is characterised by intense energy, audiovisual polyphony, the incorporation of extra-musical elements, and the presence of technology. He studied with José Manuel López López, Horacio Vaggione, Philippe Leroux and Georges Aperghis. He was chosen for the Cursus programme 1 and 2 of the Institute for Research and Coordination in Acoustics / Music (IRCAM), presenting Incompatible(s) V at ManiFeste Festival 2012. He has been artist-in-residence at Herrenhaus Edenkoben and Villa Ruffieux, Academy Schloss Solitude and Fulbright visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley. His works have been performed in Asia, America, Australia, Europe. He has been distinguished in 35 composition competitions, winning 23 awards worldwide. The monograph CD Les mystères with Das Neue Ensemble was recently released by the Toccata Classics record company while the French Radio commissioned his work Immobilités for voice and ensemble. He taught at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (2020/21). He has taught in seminars in Italy and Spain. He lives and works in Paris.

A musician and composer, he grew up in Wellington, New Zealand. His engagement with music began at an early age through the classical repertoire, jazz and improvised music, which he studied in Boston of the USA. His musical interests focus on the exploration of microtonality, modality and their applications on wind instruments. He has delved into the study of overtones and “just” tuning systems by developing an improvisational language of spontaneous composition for solo saxophone performance. At the same time, he is active as a teacher and performer in the fields of jazz, improvisation and contemporary music, as well as showing a special interest in the creative approaches of the folk traditions of Iran, Greece and the Near East. He continues studying the Iranian kamancheh and Persian radif with Sina Danesh.

She studied voice with Gogo Georgilopoulou and Spyros Sakkas. She graduated from the Department of Performance and Communication Skills of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama (London) on a scholarship from Musagetes Foundation. Her professional career started with the programme Lilipoupoli of the Third Programme of the Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation, in collaboration with composer Lena Platonos. She collaborated with composers such as Lena Platonos, Nikos Kypourgos, Nikos Mamangakis, Michalis Grigoriou, Dimitris Maragopoulos, Dimitris Kamarotos, Nikos Galenianos, Vangelis Katsoulis, Arild Andresen, Barry Guy, etc. She was a member of the Early Music Workshop (1981-1991). Since 1992, she has been practicing free vocal improvisation in the field of free jazz. She has cooperated with the group Primavera en Salonico, performing Mediterranean and Balkan songs in music festivals around the world. She has composed music for the National Theatre of Greece, the National Theatre of Northern Greece, the Municipal and Regional Theatre of Larissa and the Neos Kosmos Theatre. She has released around 30 albums.

Born in Athens in 1989. He studied classical guitar with Sonia Chalari (National Conservatory of Athens, diploma and first prize, 2021), music theory with Matthew Legakis (Zografou Conservatory Georgios Politopoulos, harmony degree, 2012), contemporary composition with Caroline Ansink (University of the Arts Utrecht, 2017). He is a graduate of the Department of Sociology of the Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences in Athens. He has been involved in Greek folk and traditional music performance and re-creation, playing the guitar and singing mainly in the musical groups Santa Bella and Antimamalo. He is a core member of the Trash Trio group. He collaborates with musicians who deal in a variety of musical genres, presenting music projects live or on video on the internet. He also writes music for theatre, film and video art. Works of him have been performed in various European countries. He was a member of the Greek National Opera Orchestra (2009-2011). As a composer and music performer, he has participated in international festivals. Since 2018, he is a member of the Oper(o) group. Since 2017, he lives and works as a musician in Athens.

She is a musician and sound artist based in Athens. Part of her research focuses on transcending Eastern rhythms and modes with electronic and stochastic media, noise, improvisation and acoustic instruments. She participates in the Khora Community Centre, an initiative aiming to provide open, social and cultural spaces for displaced people in the centre of Athens. She has worked with a variety of non-formal education groups on the subject of technology and is the creator of an online creative technology lab course. She plays the violin and is a member of the GNO Alternative Stage Intercultural Orchestra.

She graduated from the School of Drama of the Faculty of Fine Arts at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. She was awarded the first Unesco Prize for the Promotion of the Arts, for her stage design work on the subject titled “Babel” at the Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space in 2007, and a prize for innovative lighting design for Euripides Laskaridis’ Relic performance at the 2017 Theatre and Technology Awards organised by Theatrefullstop in London. She lives and works in Athens as a lighting designer in theatre and dance productions. She has collaborated with Thomas Moschopoulos, Xenia Kalogeropoulou, George Kimoulis, Thodoris Gonis, Euripides Laskaridis, Argyro Chioti, Maria Panourgia, Anestis Azas, Prodromos Tsinikoris, Group Plefsis, Zoe Chatziantoniou, Haris Fragoulis, Christos Passalis, etc. She is a member of the creative lighting group Beforelight. Since 2007, she has been involved in lighting design installations and urban events in Greece and abroad.

chórεs female vocal ensemble (Laskarina Bouboulina, River of Blood, Byron’s Fever, FIRST STASIMON, and I Saw Light)

The chórεs female vocal ensemble is a nursery of artists created by Marina Satti in 2016 as a result of a series of artistic events with the intent of promoting traditional world repertoire, and aim at a combination of education (in music, dance and acting) with performance and artistic expression. By now, more than 150 women aged from 13 to 55 collaborate with renowned teachers from different artistic fields. The ensemble’s aim is to develop into a strong community of mutual support that favours the growth of artists with wide range and social sensibilities. Their diverse repertoire ranges from traditional Greek songs to songs from the Balkans and the Eastern Mediterranean. The choir has sung compositions by Konstantinidis, Samaras, Tsalahouris, Baltas and other Greek and foreign contemporary composers. chórεs regularly collaborate with the Greek National Opera and their members have taken part in the productions Medea by Nikos Kypourgos, Sataneries by Theofrastos Sakellaridis, Exit: Spring, Domna’s Song, Epitaphios by Mikis Theodorakis, etc. In 2020, the ensemble had its first tour, performing in selected archeological sites throughout Greece in the context of the institution “All of Greece, One Culture” of the Greek Ministry of Culture and Sports. In 2021, in the context of the same institution, they presented the production SIX, with music composed by Martha Mavroidi.