Besieged Time

Alternative Stage founding donor

Alternative Stage sponsor: PPC (Public Power Company)

Besieged Time, a work based on poems written by Titos Patrikios and music by Andreas Katsigiannis, will receive its premiere at the GNO Alternative Stage, on Thursday 17 June, at 20.30. It will be performed by Thodoris Voutsikakis, one of the most important singers of the younger generation, accompanied by Estoudiantina Neas Ionias. Titos Patrikios will be performing as the narrator.

The celebrated composer and artistic director of Estoudiantina Neas Ionias, Andreas Katsigiannis, pits himself against the oeuvre of poet Titos Patrikios, composing a new music work that respects the music of the words while illuminating their subtle emotional balance. This is how Besieged Time was born, an exceptional music piece that seeks to honour Titos Patrikios’ long and prolific poetic journey.

Besieged Time consists of seven poems set to music and eight poems narrated by the poet himself. Their themes are inspired by the poet’s encounter with the concept of woman in time, his political viewpoints, and humanity’s trajectory.

Besieged Time evolves chaotically; it does not follow a linear development. Sometimes it reaches the edges of the present and other times it immerses into the non-transparent waters of the past. The colour added to the photographs disrupts the serene atmosphere of the romantic black-and-white world. It reminds us of the constant relevance of poetry and the enduring, timeless themes that have burdened human existence since the dawn of consciousness: love, death, the desire to understand and conquer the unknown.

Andreas Katsigiannis’ Besieged Time claims an important place among the few attempts that have been made to approach Titos Patrikios’ poetry through music. Although setting Patrikios’ poems to music is challenging, his oeuvre reflects the living history of Greece over the last century. All the major events of the turbulent period from the Second World War to this date have been documented in his poetry. For 75 years Titos Patrikios has been restlessly writing, voicing the anxiety, bitterness, and hopes of an entire people. He praises courage, self-denial, the longing for freedom, sacrifice, and the resilient love that grows in the ruins of the old order and the emergence of a new one. He is a poet that draws strength from his passion for life and his love and admiration for women, viewing them as a symbol of the world's eternal rebirth and the triumph over death.