Radiant soul Radiant soul
Acropolis Museum (entrance level)
Radiant soul
SEASON 2021/22 - 1st Sacred Music Festival
Holy Wednesday 20 April 2022
Δημιουργική Ομάδα

Voci Contra Tempo
Artistic curation, music conductor Sophia Gioldasi

 

PROGRAMME:

Miklós Kocsár (1933-2019)

O vos omnes

 

Lorenzo Donati (b. 1972)

Anima raggiante

Soloists: Despina Kelesidou, Stavroula Vassilakaki, Dimitra Athanassatou

 

Tine Bec (b. 1993)

Deliver me, o Lord

 

My mother, mother

Folk song of many countries (Greek translation: Christodoulos Halaris, lyrics: Nikos Gatsos, chorus arrangement: Sophia Gioldasi)

Soloist: Andria Prokopa

 

Ambrož Čopi (b. 1973)

Sing joyfully to God

Cantate Domino

 

Voci Contra Tempo

Dimitra Athanassatou, Stavroula Vassilakaki, Eleni Dimopoulou, Marilena Zoubouloglou, Athanassia Thomopoulou, Ria Karamatsouki, Eva Karkafiri, Despina Kelessidou, Maria Kondylidou, Pandora Liassopoulou, Eleni Manta, Andria Prokopa, Penelope Broomhead-Petromelidou, Maria Svarna, Elena Tzika, Stella Tzina, Kallipatira Hadjikalimeri, Pelagia Hadjinikita, Lia Hadjopoulou

Πρωταγωνιστές Παράστασης

Practical information:

- Audience members can enter all venues for free, on a first come first served basis. No advance booking is required.

- Due to the limited space available in many of the festival venues, some of the concerts will be repeated up to three times per day, to give the chance to as large an audience as possible to attend them.

- The concerts of the festival will be of short duration (from 25 to 40 minutes on average), so that audience members can attend more than one, if they wish so.

- The distance from one venue to the other is small, so that audience members have the chance to enjoy many of the festival events.

- The detailed programme will be available online at nationalopera.gr and digitalculture.gov.gr, while the printed programme that will be distributed to the public will include a map with all the venues, summary descriptions of the events, and QR codes referring to the detailed programme on the GNO website.

- All preventive measures against COVID-19 will be adhered to in all venues.

Acropolis Museum (entrance level)
Opera

Radiant soul

1st Sacred Music Festival

Starts at 18.00 and 19.00clock

Duration: approx. 20 min.

Capacity max. 200 person

 

 

 

logos 02

 

 

The very nature of the word “soul” denotes something timeless, immaterial, endless… A magical substance that doesn’t fit in the narrow boundaries of the mind. Radiant soul, translated from Lorenzo Donati’s work Anima raggiante, is the soul of Jesus. It is the voice of truth that weeps all alone, in silence, over the evils of this world (Piange la voce… sola… nel silenzio). Donati combines Gabriele D’Annunzio’s heartbreaking text with Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina’s Lamentations, creating a blend of old and new musical languages. It is upon this duality that the rest of the concert programme is also based, with texts lost in the mists of time, but with music performed through contemporary techniques of choral writing.

Hungarian composer Miklós Kocsár, Greek composer Christodoulos Halaris, and the just 29-year-old multi-awarded Slovenian composer Tine Bec, breathe new life into the Divine Passion, Lament, and Death. In the last two compositions of the programme, celebrated composer Ambrož Čopi –who’s also Slovenian– reminds us that Death is followed by the fervent awaiting of the Resurrection, and that is why we should be truly grateful, “(celebrating) with strings and instruments”, for the gift of human life.

All the compositions are worldly creations connecting the past with the present and the future, just like the Caryatides symbolically do at the Acropolis Museum, where this music will be performed. Choral art converses with the Parthenon sculptures and the ever-lasting “Radiant soul” that hovers in the celestial dome surrounding us. — S. G.

 

A few words about the ensemble

The female vocal ensemble Voci Contra Tempo was created in 2017. It is formed as a project choir and becoming part of it requires either long-standing involvement in singing or years of experience in choir participation. One of the ensemble’s goals is to bring out pieces for female choir with an emphasis on the music works of the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. Its repertoire, nevertheless, includes more music genres, such as traditional folk songs of different nations. The Voci Contra Tempo ensemble has collaborated, among others, with the Thessaloniki State Orchestra, and in 2021 it took part in the Guido d’Arezzo International Festival, receiving triumphant reviews. In Greece it has appeared in Thessaloniki, Athens, Ioannina and Serres. In 2022 it will be an ensemble in residence at the Department of Music Studies of the Aristotelian University of Thessaloniki, doing important educational work for conductors and composers. The ensemble is curated and conducted by Sophia Gioldasi.

 

Acropolis Museum

The Acropolis Museum is situated about 300 metres south-east of the Parthenon in the historic area of Makriyannis and its entrance is next to the Dionysiou Areopagitou pedestrian walkway that links several archaeological sites of Athens. It first opened its gates to the public in 2009 and it houses the archaeological findings from the Acropolis and its outskirts. The Museum’s exhibition, organised according to topographical, chronological and thematic criteria, offers visitors a full picture of the site and its history during antiquity. Moreover, the building, which was designed by architects Bernard Tschumi and Michalis Fotiadis, ensures the visual connection of the Museum’s exhibits with the rock and the monuments of the Acropolis, aiming to become the continuation of the natural and built environment.

 

First Sacred Music Festival info leaflet available to read and download here