Syros International Music Festival

Syros International Music Festival

19 - 23 November 2024

Apollon Theater
Hermoupolis Syros

The Syros International Music Festival contains a week of world class chamber music and musical activities that takes place at the historic Apollon Theater in the capital of the Cycladic Islands: Syros, Greece. The Festival has been conceived and is directed by violinists Asi Matathias and Tosca Opdam and it will consist of a week of captivating music making and chamber concerts that will feature some of the most sought after international soloists.
We hope you join us at the theatre and become a part of our musical family!

19th November 19th - 20:30

"Grand Opening"

The Grand Opening concert of the festival highlights the limitless splendor of the string ensemble genre. Programmed in this concert are two grand pieces. Mozart's Divertimento written in 1788, a masterpiece for string trio as captivating in character as it is epic in breadth, alongside Brahms's exuberant and joyful Quintet op. 111, one of the last pieces of music he wrote. The premiere of the Quintet in 1890 in Vienna was said to mark the sensational qualities of the piece.

November 20th 2024 - 20:30

 "Folk Spirit" 

Great works have been inspired not only by high-minded ideals, but also by the colorful music composers heard played as entertainment outside the concert hall.

The program opens with Dvorak's magnificent Terzetto, with its unique and rather unusual in its instrumentation for a string trio; two violins and a viola, followed by a special commission by the Festival from noted American composer, Todd Mason. The piece, written for solo piano, depicts the Greek legend of the runner, Pheidippides, trying desperately to reach Athens with good news of the battle at Marathon. The music, which will be premiered by Victor Stanislavsky, imagines Pheidippides' 25-mile race where his frantic thoughts of the battle alternate with fevered dreams of loved ones and the glory of Greece. When he finally reaches the Acropolis, he proclaims "Hail, we are the winners!" thus saving Athens from their worst fears, then collapsing with his last word, "Joy!"

The Five Pieces in Folk Style by Robert Schumann are miniatures containing the simplicity, bold expression, and broad humor of German folk songs and dances. Concluding the concert is Poulenc's fantastic sonata for Clarinet and piano alongside Zoltán Kodály's delightfully folksy Duo for Violin and Cello performed by Pinchas Zukerman and Amanda Forsyth.

November 21st 2024 - 20:30

"The Magic of the Clarinet"

A concert where the lyrical and technical possibilities of the Clarinet are exploited to its fullest. Brahms's touching and beautiful Clarinet Trio alongside Mozart's phenomenal Clarinet Quintet, completed near the composer's death. In celebrating the redemptive quality of Mozart's music, no work more fully speaks to a vision of utopian bliss. Sibelius's Lovisa Trio, a forgotten gem, completes a true musical feast.

November 22nd - 20:30

 "Transfigured night" 

This is an evening that sparks the imagination to its fullest!
It starts off with Prokofievs' sextet written in 1919 during his time in the United States. Commissioned by the Zimro Ensemble led by a clarinettist, it highlights many dialogues between the violin and clarinet, bringing this piece with a rather unusual instrumentation and highly folkloric quality to life. Schubert composed his Fantasie for four hands during the last year of his life, in 1928. It is a piece that shifts from minor to major, showing a contrast of dark and light, sadness and happiness. It is considered one of his most important piano works. Published after his death, it was dedicated to his favorite student, Karoline Esterhazy.
A special rendition will be given of Schoenberg's Transfigured Night. The piece is based on the poem with the same name by the renowned German poet Richard Dehmel and invokes powerful and big- as well as very subtle and nuanced emotions. In a masterful way, Schoenberg brings about this wide range of expressions through music. Tonights' rendition will be in in piano trio form, arranged by E.Steuermann and will add yet another artform: Photographer & Videographer Alexandros Petrakis created especially for tonights' concert visuals inspired by both poem and music, that show a fantastical scenery from around the Island of Syros supported by wonderful dancers in a most magical way.

November 23rd 2024 - 20:30

 "Gala Concert" 

Two majestical pieces of the chamber music repertoire are programmed for this years' festival finale.

The piano trio by Tchaikovsky is one of his most beloved works. It is full of expressive lyricism, a wide range of colors, thick textures and a beautiful melancholic nostalgia that flows throughout the two-movement piece.

A more high-spirited tone is found in Schumann's piano quintet. Schumann composed the piece in just a few weeks time. His wife, Clara Schumann, was the pianist who premiered it in the Gewandhaus in Leipzig. Schumann was one of the first composers to add a piano part to the common genre of the string quartet and thus giving a new dimension to chamber music. This piece shows the very exciting dialogues that develop between the strings and the piano.