MUSICAL PORTRAITS
 
A symphonic tribute by the Athens State Orchestra and the Athens Concert Hall to the memory of a great composer of the Greek diaspora. Born in Heliopolis, Cairo, and raised among the cosmopolitan expatriate community of Alexandria, Jani Christou was a pupil of Gina Bachauer, as well as an economist and a philosopher, a student of Ludwig Wittgenstein and Bertrand Russell at Cambridge, and subsequently an Athens-based composer. He died in a car accident in January 1970. Conductor Miltos Logiadis, an authority on Jani Christou, will collaborate with world-class mezzo-soprano Irini Tsirakidis in the emblematic works of tonight’s programme.

– Jani Christou: Phoenix Music
                        Six T. S. Eliot Songs, for mezzo-soprano and orchestra 
                        Symphony No. 1, with a setting for female voice and orchestra of T. S. Eliot’s poem ‘Eyes that last I saw in tears’

Irini Tsirakidis mezzo-soprano

The Athens State Orchestra
Conducted by Miltos Logiadis

Free introductory talk for ticket holders at 19:45
 

Co-produced by the Athens State Orchestra and the Athens Concert Hall