Premiere of “Synecdochai” for 15 performers (clarinet, trombone, marimba, harp, cello, yiayli tambour, oud, ney, qanun, Zarb, trumpet, electric guitar, double bass, piano, drums set).Kornilios Selamsis – conductor.
Commissioned by the Alternative Scene of the Greek National Opéra, Niarchos Cultural Center, Athens.
Program Note
The starting point for the work Syncedochai is the micro-history of the Notaras brothers’ rivalry over a woman (Makrygiannis, Memoirs), which evokes a series of interesting associations, referring to the various levels of conflict between Greek groups over the distribution of power. Rather than a description of these syncretic relationships, I aim at the structural level, creating superpositions of logical conflict through musical ideas of a heterogeneous nature. By avoiding a unified narrative and projecting alternative idioms of musical discourse, I attempt to highlight the fluidity of relationships between disparate materials and dispositions
The work is part of the Greek Songbook for the 200th anniversary of the Greek Revolution of 1821, edited by the composer Cornelios Selamsis. Over 30 creators from the fields of scholarly and popular music and performing arts engage in a series of bold musical constructions, songs and images.
The foundation of the project is the use of a series of anthologized historical materials (texts, scores or narratives) related directly or indirectly to persons and things of the era of the revolution – a fragmentary landscape made of lifeless ruins, around which the descendants build their contemporary superstructure.
Without, otherwise, any attempt to disguise its inherent contradictions, the musical material produced is aligned at the level of its sonic negotiation by the use of ten instruments of European and five of traditional music, in a confrontational scheme that aspires to render in a formal way the series of disparate currents that converged in the cultural and political melting pot of 1821.
The production is supported by a donation from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) [www.SNF.org] for the creation of the National Opera’s anniversary programme for the 200th anniversary of the Greek Revolution of 1821.
dimitri papageorgiou 