Tuesday, 12 October 2021

GNO Learning & Participation programme 2021/2022

The GNO Learning & Participation Department returns and launches the new 2021/22 season with a renewed, rich programme for children, teenagers, young people, schools of primary and secondary education, adults, persons aged 65 and over, amateur and professional artists in Athens and other regions of Greece.

Educational programmes for schools, activities for the whole family, intercultural education for teenagers, intercultural amateur ensembles (Choir, Orchestra, Dance Group), diverse activities for persons aged 65 and over, programmes for new artists, and workshops in collaboration with the Olympia International Film Festival for Children and Young People compose the new, rich programme of the GNO Learning & Participation Department from October 2021 to July 2022.

Over the course of the next ten months, the GNO venues at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center, from the Choir Hall to the Ballet Rehearsal Hall and the Alternative Stage, will turn for one more season into a wide, flexible, experimental and viable space for artistic innovation and research, where a network of acclaimed artists/educators will reintroduce opera, ballet, and music theatre to the wider audience.

After the success of last year’s programme How Did A Raven End Up In The Belly Of The Whale?, the pilot programme of interdisciplinary artistic and pedagogical activities continues with the workshop The Talisman, which is targeted at schools of primary education in the Region of Attica, under the guidance of composer Dimitra Trypani.

Activities for the whole family that were abruptly interrupted due to the pandemic return to the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center with a series of workshops: Opera From The Cradle for infants and toddlers, Dad… shall we dance? an invitation to dance with your dad, Meet the Nutcracker for the fans of classical ballet, StOpera Motion: Rigoletto, a workshop that brings operatic stories to life through the stop motion animation technique, as well as two new separate workshops in collaboration with the Olympia International Film Festival for Children and Young People: Opera Filmmakers and Stop Motion Animation: The Nutcracker. Moreover The Magic Pillows/Sleepover workshop comes to offer children a unique experience: a sleepover at the GNO on the occasion of the performance The Magic Pillows by Evgenios Trivizas.

Intercultural education for teenagers includes the programme Co-OPERAtive, which was awarded the Fedora Prize for Education 2019. It is the first opera hub for a mixed group of young Athenians and unaccompanied asylum-seeking minors aged 14-18 from across Attica.

After a long pause in live meetings, the Intercultural Orchestra and Intercultural Choir of the GNO continue their unique musical journeys, while the Gamelan Orchestra aims to create the first Indonesian Folk Music Orchestra in Greece. This year, the Intercultural amateur ensembles are further enhanced with the creation of an Intercultural Dance Group.
Projects for persons aged 65 and over continue with intensive rehearsals on a weekly basis for two of the most popular workshops of the Learning and Participation Department, the 65+ Choir and Guitar Express. One more project is now added to this category, the Third Stasimon, which is based on theatre and music ensemble techniques.

As part of the GNO’s outreach policy and the need to bring our projects closer to the public in regions all over Greece, the Learning and Participation Department continues its collaboration with the Municipality of Skiathos by implementing a multitude of educational and artistic projects on the island, prepares the entry of a short film that will be created as part of the workshop Lyric Short Filmmakers in the Olympia International Film Festival for Children and Young People, and fosters many more partnerships with regional municipalities and organisations all over Greece.

Artistic coordinator: Eva Karterou
Production manager: Kallirroi Papadopoulou
Artistic associates: Ann-Kristin Sofroniou, Christina Spanou

Contact– Submission of proposals: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Find the detailed schedule from October 2021 to July 2022 below:

Projects for Schools

The Talisman
October 2021-June 2022

The Greek National Opera Learning & Participation Department continues for a second year its pilot programme of artistic and pedagogical activities with a new workshop titled The Talisman.

The Talisman comes as a continuation of last year’s successful programme How Did A Raven End Up In The Belly Of The Whale?, which was conducted and curated by Dimitra Trypani and came complete with the filming of the musical tale’s presentation in the Stavros Niarchos Hall of the GNO at the SNFCC (May 2021), featuring 130 students, teachers, musicians and soloists. The musical tale How Did A Raven End Up In The Belly Of The Whale? is available to watch for free at nationalopera.gr/GNOTV with Greek and English subtitles until 31/12.

The programme is targeted at schools of primary education in the Region of Attica and aspires to bring primary school educators and students in contact with the fascinating world of music theatre through the use of modern and innovative tools. Its goal is to help participants acquire basic technical skills and introduce them into the creative process of preparing a music theatre performance. Upon the completion of the workshops, the final result will be presented before a wide audience in the Stavros Niarchos Hall in June 2022.

Coordination manager: Dimitra Trypani
Starts: 9 October 2021
Implementation schedule: Saturdays, 10.00 – 12.00

The programme is sponsored by

Workshops for families

Opera From The Cradle
October - November 2021

A music-motor education workshop for infants and preschoolers with the accompaniment of live instrumental music from four different eras

A project that awakens the motor and auditory development of infants and preschoolers through four periods of music - baroque, classicism, romanticism and 20th-century music - with an approach that includes parent participation. Through music and movement games children discover different timbres and styles and get acquainted with the sound of classical music and the main families of musical instruments.

Age groups: Group A: 1 to 2,5 years and Group B: 2,5 to 4 years
The presence of at least one parent is necessary for both age groups.

Planning/Implementation: Daphne Tsiouni (music educator / sound artist), Anna Serkedaki (flutist, music educator)
Musicians: 17/10 Baroque: George Goumenakis - mandolino, Stavros Parginos – cello • 24/10 Classical: Vanesa Athanasiou – violin, Periclis Timpalexis – violin, Elissavet Skoura - viola, Elli Filippou - cello • 31/10 Romantic: Stella Nikolaidi – oboe, Chrysa Grenda – piano • 7/11 20th-Century: Stavros Kollias - piano
Implementation schedule (dates): 17 October-Baroque / 24 October – Classical / 31 October – Romantic / 7 November – 20th-Century
Implementation schedule (hours): Group A: 10.00-10.45 & Group B: 11.15-12.00

The Magic Pillows / Sleepover
November 2021

Activities for children inspired by the new production The Magic Pillows.

The famous, much-translated and award-winning story by Eugene Trivizas is adapted by the author himself for the first time into an opera for the whole family set to premiere in the Stavros Niarchos Hall of the GNO at the SNFCC in November 2021. On the occasion of this new fascinating GNO production, ten children aged 8 to 11 will have the unique chance to experience a sleepover in the Greek National Opera at the SNFCC, on 27 and 28 November. Music and movement workshops, dressing-up as characters inspired by the performance, a thematic dinner and breakfast accompanied by a small musical ensemble, and storytelling are just some of the activities, in which the children who will spend the night at the Opera will participate.

Planning/Implementation: Eugene Trivizas & TBA
Ages: 8 to 11 years old
Implementation schedule: 27, 28 November 2021
Registration from 1/11: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Meet the Nutcracker
December 2021
A ballet workshop for children, teenagers, adults

For a second year children, teenagers and adults will experience the magical world of classical dance through a workshop that will be held on the occasion of the production of The Nutcracker, which is set to premiere in the GNO Stavros Niarchos Hall at the SNFCC on 17/12 with a new choreography by GNO Ballet Director Konstantinos Rigos. Meet the Nutcracker is a workshop held in collaboration with the GNO Ballet and led by the GNO Ballet principal dancers that aims at introducing participants into one of the most popular and enduringly enchanting ballets in the repertoire, for children and grown-ups alike. In its original two-act version, with a choreography by Lev Ivanov, a libretto by Marius Petipa, and music by Tchaikovsky, The Nutcracker was first performed at the Mariinsky Imperial Theatre in Saint Petersburg on 18 December 1892.

Planning/Implementation: Elena Andreoudi & Vangelis Bikos
Implementation schedule (dates): 28 November & 5 December 2021
Ages: 28/11 12 to 14 years old & 5/12 15 to 18 years old
Implementation schedule (hours): 11:00 – 13:00
Registration from 1/11: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Dad… shall we dance?
April 2021

A dance games workshop for fathers with children aged 6 to 12

The successful ballet workshop that enthralled children and…daddies comes back for one more season. Once again, the Learning & Participation Department invites daddies to dance with their children, perform ballet figures, find out their balance limitations and discuss with their partners through movement and dance. Two precious hours full of motor activities, improvisations and games.

An invitation to dance not to be missed!

Planning/ Implementation: TBA
Ages: 6 to 12 years old
Implementation schedule (dates): 10 & 17 April 2022
Implementation schedule (hours): 11.00 – 13.00
Registration from 20/3: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Workshops in collaboration with the Olympia International Film Festival for Children & Young People

The programme of the GNO Learning and Participation Department is expanded with two new workshops for children and teenagers in collaboration with the Olympia International Film Festival for Children & Young People. The first one titled Opera Filmmakers (October-November 2021) is a workshop in which participants will have the chance to create a backstage documentary, and the second is a stop motion animation workshop inspired by the Greek National Opera’s production The Nutcracker (December 2021).

Opera Filmmakers
16, 23 October & 6, 14 November 2021

A co-production of the GNO Learning & Participation Department and the Olympia International Film Festival for Children & Young People

Τhe GNO Learning & Participation Department in a co-production with the Olympia International Film Festival for Children & Young People invites Junior High School students to participate in the new educational workshop titled Lyric Opera Filmmakers. It is an experiential filmmaking workshop during which children will peep into a real theatre backstage and capture on camera secrets from the different stages of the process of creating an opera performance.

The workshop will be conducted in four meetings (16, 23 October & 6,14 November 2021) of four hours each. Its participants will form a short film production group, and the film they will create will enter the 24th Olympia International Film Festival for Children & Young People (27/11-4/12/2021).

With a camera at hand participants will wander the backstage of the Greek National Opera at the SNFCC, will unlock the theatre costume and prop rooms, will observe the operation of the mechanisms supporting this grand-scale theatrical stage and will peep into a rehearsal.

During this process, children will get acquainted with the language of cinema, its means of expression, and the techniques and basic principles of directing. They will also be guided through the selected subject and will learn how to draft a screenplay. Moreover, they will be involved in the organisation of the shooting and will share the roles of a film crew before and behind the camera.

Planning & Implementation: GNO Learning and Participation Department & Olympia International Film Festival for Children & Young People
Implementation schedule (dates): 16, 23 October & 6,14 November 2021
Implementation schedule (hours): 12.00 – 16.00 (hours may change)
Participants: 12 Junior High School students
Workshop leader: Chrysanthi Badeka

Stop motion animation: The Nutcracker
December 2021

Using Erling Eriksson’s animation box along with some more simple applications as a main instrument, this experiential workshop will introduce students to animation and teach them how to tell a short story in two or three dimensions with simple techniques (cut out animation, claymation, two-dimensional painting). Inspired by Tchaikovsky’s ballet The Nutcracker participants will create a short stop motion animation under the guidance of the Olympia International Film Festival for Children & Young People’s team.

Implementation schedule (dates): 18 & 19 December 2021
Implementation schedule (hours): 10.00-13.00
Participants: 12 students of the 4th, 5th and 6th Grade of Primary School
Workshop leader: TBA
Registration from 1/12: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

*Participants will have to attend the whole workshop cycle.

StΟpera Μotion Workshop: Rigoletto
May 2022

A stop motion animation workshop with props for children aged 8 to 12

Inspired by Giuseppe Verdi’s timeless opera Rigoletto, the GNO Learning & Participation Department creates a multidimensional learning and creating workshop. Its goal is to make children discover the opera, and drawing upon its musical themes to portray the story through the stop motion animation technique. At the same time they will learn simple techniques that they’ll also be able to use at home.

Children will bring props from the GNO prop storage room to life and will tell their own version of the story reintroducing thus Rigoletto to the audience.

Planning/Implementation: Christina Spanou
Ages: 8 to 12 years ols
Implementation schedule (dates): 8, 15, 22, 29 May 2022
Implementation schedule (hours): 10.00-13.00
Registration from 20/4: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

* Participants will have to attend the whole workshop cycle.

Intercultural Education - Teenagers
Co-OPERAtive: An intercultural and collaborative opera hub for young people
February-July 2022

An intercultural opera hub for a mixed group of 30 young Athenians and unaccompanied asylum-seeking minors aged 14-18 from across Attica.

The Co-OPERAtive programme, awarded with the Fedora Education Prize 2019, is an intercultural opera hub for a mixed group of young Athenians and unaccompanied asylum-seeking minors aged 14-18 from across Attica. It is inspired by opera, which serves as a common language for the creation of the first intercultural opera hub for young people in Europe. Co-OPERAtive’s goal is to expand opera’s impact and make it more known to the younger audiences, while bringing out cultural diversity and social cohesion.

Start: 28 February 2022
Implementation schedule (dates): TBA
Ages: 14-18 years old
Final performances: 3 July 2022
Information: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

More information as well as an open call for participants will be announced soon.

Intercultural Ensembles

Intercultural Orchestra
October 2021- July 2022

The GNO Intercultural Orchestra continues its journey into the world of music, while serving as a crossroad for different beliefs and cultures. With performances on prestigious stages of Athens and through a series of collaborations with acclaimed artists in the field of Eastern Mediterranean Music, this year’s season the more than 30 members of the Intercultural Orchestra will take a step further by actively participating in Greek National Opera’s production Inland, to music by Angelos Triantafyllou and directed by Nikos Karathanos, which will be presented in 2022.

The next Intercultural Orchestra concert is set for Monday 8 November 2021 at the Piraeus Municipal Theatre. Admission is free. Information: nationalopera.gr

Orchestra coordinator: Harris Lambrakis
Starts: 4 October 2021
Implementation schedule: Mondays, 18.00-21.00
Information/Registration: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Intercultural Choir
October 2021-June 2022

The Intercultural Choir project of the GNO Learning & Participation Department continues for a sixth year. After a long pause in live meetings, old and new members from every corner of the earth will once again join their voices into a unique musical journey without borders. For this year’s season the Intercultural Choir will be conducted by distinguished singer Anna Linardou. The Intercultural Choir already has more than 30 members. Ukraine, Cameroon, Slovakia, Tanzania, New Guinea, Syria, Cyprus, United Kingdom, France, USA, Iran, Kenya, Iraq, and Greece are only some of the countries of origin of those who have participated in the Choir. Its repertoire is getting constantly expanded and enriched with wonderful songs from the traditional folk music of its members’ homelands.

Choir mistress: Anna Linardou
Assistant choir mistress/Piano accompaniment: Dimitra Kokkinopoulou
Start of the programme: 4 October 2021
Implementation schedule: Mondays, 18.30 – 20.00
Information / Registration: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Intercultural Dance Group
October 2021-May 2022

A new intercultural workshop is born from the GNO Learning & Participation Department. Its members will have a background in intercultural, traditional and folk dance genres, but also in genres such as street dance, jazz, tap dance etc. Under the guidance of the workshop’s leader/choreographer the members of the Intercultural Dance Group will work together to exchange experiences and skills and to form an original dance group, in which traditions from diverse cultures will converse with contemporary creation.

Starts: 15 November 2021
Implementation schedule: Mondays, 18.00 – 21.00

More information as well as an open call for participants will be announced soon.

Gamelan Orchestra
Spring 2022

In collaboration with the Embassy of Indonesia in Greece

Τhe GNO Learning & Participation Department in collaboration with the Embassy of Indonesia in Athens continue the Gamelan Orchestra workshop, which was launched in January 2021 but was abruptly interrupted due to the pandemic.

The workshop aims at creating a Gamelan orchestra and introducing its members to the traditional Gamelan music of Java through its interplay with the contemporary classical music repertoire. In this workshop Gamelan music tradition is reshaped and restyled, giving the participants the opportunity to learn Indonesian traditional folk pieces as well as a contemporary work written for a Gamelan ensemble by composer and workshop leader Andy Skordis.

The members of the orchestra will get to know the different instruments of a Gamelan orchestra and the particularities of Gamelan music in relation to form and rhythm. Starting from the Gamelan music tradition and focusing on its social dimension, the interaction and communication between musicians will be the most important component for the Orchestra’s musical development.

Workshop leader/Composition: Andys Skordis

Implementation schedule & venue of the final performance: TBA

Workshops for 65+

*In line with the restrictive measures for the protection of public health against the spread of COVID-19 and the guidelines of the Greek State, persons aged 65 and over can only participate in the workshops by presenting a certificate of vaccination against or recovery from COVID-19.

Trito Stasimo
January-July 2022

An experiential educational programme for people aged 65 and over, which creatively connects musical and theatrical education, promoting group creativity and active musical and theatrical involvement. Its goal is to form an active group that will give its members the chance to socialise and have a sense of “belonging” to a collectivity – each of them as a necessary link of a musico-theatrical chain–, to evolve and be able to know their own selves better through the others.

Planning/Implementation: Kiki Kerzeli, Eva Oikonomou Vamvaka
Starts: 19 January 2022
Implementation schedule: Wednesdays 10.00-13.00
Registration from 1/12: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

65+ Choir
October 2021-July 2022

The 65+ Choir workshop continues its intensive rehearsals of the repertoire worked on during the pandemic-induced remote meetings. The 65+ Choir takes us on a musical journey through different countries around the world and different regions of Greece, always with the goal of promoting the socialisation of its members and the development of emotional bonds and communication between them through singing and speech.

From January 2022, the 65+ Choir will focus on acquainting its members with the world of opera on and off stage. The workshop will start with the teaching of the songs of Angelos Triantafyllou’s opera Inland, which will feature the members of the Choir. The opera that will be directed by Nikos Karathanos will be presented in the GNO Stavros Niarchos Hall at the SNFCC in 2022.

Choir mistress: Dimitra Papastavrou
Piano: Konstantinos Papathymnios
Start of the programme: 1 November 2021
Implementation schedule: Mondays 14.00 – 16.00
Information/Registration: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Guitar Express
November 2021 – March 2022

A guitar, positive mood and much-loved songs are all you need to join the company of Guitar Express. During the weekly meetings of this successful programme time and current obligations stay out of class. It is the time to play the guitar, time for our favourite songs, joy and relaxation. It is the time to make music in the present with ingredients from the past so as to conquer the future.

The programme includes live meetings in small groups, weekly video courses, extra material for practice and auditory training, and online group meetings.

Planning/Implementation: Kiki Kerzeli
Scientific consultant: Ioanna Etmektsoglou
Starts: 2 November 2021
Implementation schedule: Tuesdays 10.00 – 12.00
Information: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.