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Pater Noster by Choir Lab AUTh | Thessaloniki

Pater Noster is my first composition. It was composed back in 1999 and got its premiere 24 years later at Megaron Concert Hall of Thessaloniki in 2023. Though the piece is a Christian prayer, I see God in a broader Spinozian way which encompasses everything and everyone. One thing that connects us all, is the need for hope in difficult and despairing times. I hope this prayer will find its path into the hearts of people who are in such need.

Performed by Choir Lab at the School of Music Studies AUTh
Conducted by Erifili Damianou

Choir Members: Athanasopoulos Ermis, Alexandrou Orthodoxia, Vasileiadi Zoi, Gavriilidou Antonia, Gkekas Anastasis, Gkountelaki Katerina, Glykokokalou Eleni, Grampsas Apostolis, Darkoudis Zacharias, Domvrou Nikoleta, Theocharous Kostas, Thoma Alkistis, Ioannou Lydia, Zazopoulou Ioanna, Kalaitzidou Kyriaki (solo), Kalou Christina, Karapinidi Anthi, Katsiou Vasiliki, Katsonis Grigoris, Kyrtsoudis Nektarios, Lagou Evelina, Mallas Vasilis, Manika Dimitra, Meleneklis Stelios, Beza Alexia, Pagoulatos Diamantis, Roumelioti Maria-rafaella (ariella), Semertsidou Efthymia, Soultanis Dimitris, Stafylidis Konstantinos, Syrlantzi Eva, Topaloglou Christina, Trouli Anastasia, Tsougkra Konstantina, Tsougkra Maria, Filippou Evangelos, Fragkalas Christodoulos

Cover Photo: Vitraux from St. Nicholas Chapel at Thessaloniki

Pater Noster at Thessaloniki Concert Hall | Greece

Pater Noster for mixed choir is getting its premiere a quarter of a century after it was composed at Thessaloniki Megaron-Concert Hall. The premiere comes at a devastating period as my hometown, Thessaloniki, mourns the victims of a horrifying rail accident that cost the lives of many people, many of whom were students at the university where I teach. I dedicate the performance of this prayer to the memory of the victims.

The concert will take place on the 6th of April 2023 as a part of the 10th Children’s – youth choir festival: THE A CAPELLA TIME

Choir Lab AUTh | Conductor Erifili Damianou
April 6th, 2023 | Thessaloniki Concert Hall

more information about the festival here

Nexus I premiere by Peter Katina | Slovakia

Nexus I for Accordion and fixed media is getting its world premiere by Peter Katina. The concert will take place at Divadlo Viola Centre on 7th of December 2022. The piece is dedicated to Peter who has commissioned it. In this piece, the Accordion is in an open dialogue and connection (nexus) with an imaginary part of itself (electronics). The musical material consists of very small, fragmented gestures closely examined and observed from multiple perspectives. The electronic part has at times symbiotic character, at other times an anti-biotic one. The sonic image of the piece can be seen as unpredictable star reflections on mirrors placed into the darkness of the abyss.

more info here http://www.peterkatina.sk

Orbits performance at Arts Incubator | Seoul

Orbits for piano and tape is getting a performance in Korea by Jongin Moon. The piece will be played as a part of this year’s Arts Incubator festival “Borderless Point”. October 22, 17pm at Oil Tank Culture Park T1, T2. More information about the festival and the program can be found here https://audio-trading-manual.kr/index.html

Contemporary Greek Music CD presentation | Thessaloniki

On April 6th, Fani Karagianni is presenting a new CD release with Contemporary Greek works for solo piano. The album includes 18 works for solo piano by 13 Greek composers of the 20th and 21st century: Nikos Skalkotas, Giannis A. Papaioannou, Argyris Kounadis, Costas Nikitas, Christos Samaras, Costas Tsougras, Maronidis, Dimitris Oikonomou, Stella Dalampira, Glykeria Koutoula, Orestis Papaioannou. The 4th etude from 4 (Hommage) Etudes is included in the CD.

There will be a round-table discussion with Costas Tsougras, Fani Karagianni, Georgios-Ioulios Papadopoulos, George Sakallieros, Petros Vouvaris. The presentation/concert will take place at the concert hall “Melina Mercouri” of the State Conservatory of Thessaloniki (15 Frangon, Thessaloniki) on Wednesday, April 6, 2022, at 20:00.

Read More »Contemporary Greek Music CD presentation | Thessaloniki

Multiplexing at MOMus Museum of Contemporary Art | Thessaloniki

Multiplexing is now exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art MOMus at Thessaloniki as part of the exhibition “Public Domain”. The exhibition takes place from 11th of March 2022 till 25th of September 2022. The opening on 11.3 is free for the public.

In telecommunications and computer networks, multiplexing (MUX) is a method in which multiple analog or digital signals are combined into one over a shared medium. The aim is usually to share a scarce resource. For example, in telecommunications, several telephone calls may be carried using one wire. Multiplexing originated in telegraphy in the 1870s, and is now widely applied in communications. In this particular work, the idea of MUX is transferred into the sound domain. A series of logically performed processes are channeled and distributed through a transistor array, activating a matrix of micro-sound sources thus building a large, mechanically generated, sound-cloud. Each cell of the system is becoming a part of a larger sound body. Each voice, no matter how infinitesimal,  matters in order to build a collective sound-set. The work symbolically refers to the unity that we all need -in these dark days- in our world.

More information about the work here
Information about the exhibition here
Museum opening hours: https://www.facebook.com/MOMusContemporary

Read More »Multiplexing at MOMus Museum of Contemporary Art | Thessaloniki

7 COnsecutive INVENTions at AI and Music S+T+ARTS Festival | Barcelona

7 Consecutive INVENTions are getting a performance by the Greek pianist Fani Karagianni at

AI and Music S+T+ARTS Festival: Synergies of musical creation with Artificial Intelligence
Thursday 28 15:20 – 15:35 | Streaming Channel 1

In this exclusive audiovisual streaming, presented by the AI research and communication platform Artificia, we go behind the scenes of Thessaloniki Universities AI Chameleon, a GAN capable of generating musical harmonies that can be used by composers. In a 15 minute capsule, a chamber quartet of musicians from Barcelona’s OBC and the Greek pianist Fanny Karagianni will play pieces whose harmonic content was based on human-machine interaction.

in collaboration with Artificia

https://aimusicfestival.eu/en/programs/2021/areas/concerts-amp-demo-research/chameleon-s-blendings-performed-by-a-obc-s-string-quartet-and-pianist-fani-karagianni

Read More »7 COnsecutive INVENTions at AI and Music S+T+ARTS Festival | Barcelona

4 (hommage) études performed by Tobias Weiß | Vienna

Please watch a new video of Tobias Weiß performing 4 (hommage) études. The concert took place at Fanny Hensel-Saal in Vienna on the 6th of February 2019. The piece is an hommage to the following composers I. Hommage à Helmut Lachenmann, II. Hommage à Gyorgy Ligeti, III. Hommage à Steve Reich and IV. Hommage à Gundega Šmite. Various aspects of the piano playing techniques are highlighted in each of these miniature etudes whilst the fundamental aim of the piece is to help the younger students to open up their minds into a poly-stylistic acoustic environment of negative pedaling, minimalism, patterns, clusters, and isorhythmic structures; in an emotional trip that spans from icy austerity to a warm contemplative nirvana! Enjoy!

Music always wins | Longleash Trio | New York

meta.ξ | music always wins | a dramatized installation by Longleash Trio

Chaconne for piano, violin, Violoncello, and fixed media is going to get its premiere in New York on the 7th of July 2021 by the American Trio Longleash. The piece is focusing on the sonic moment of a glass breaking and creating a crystalline sound while its particles fall apart on the ground. A special poem was composed by Gundega Smite and myself for this purpose and was used as an outline for the development of the form of the piece.

poem by Gundega Smite & Dimitris Maronidis


When asked about his work words and music and the battle between the two, Samuel Beckett was clear: music is the absolute winner, as it “is the idea itself, unaware of the world of phenomena”2, in contrast to Beckett’s view on language and its expressive limitations

This is indeed true, since music ―especially abstract music― has no signified meaning, at least in the way language has. Even when an extra-musical idea or text is signified through the music, to the unaware listener music remains ―and can be perceived as― a signifier, since there is no established code attaching certain meanings to certain sounds.

When it comes to a live performance of music, is this autonomy a virtue or a flaw? Especially when more than one fields of art are involved and a certain ―or uncertain― message is to be delivered, is the absence of the signified a desired quality of music?

At the bottom line, this principle seems to be inevitably present. Thus, the question raised is not how to change the nature of music, but rather the way it is perceived. That is, to question Beckett’s note: why does music always win? Why is language ―or its visual representation― inferior to music?

In a conventional concert situation, the audience is placed against the stage (and the music) and perceives it in a rather passive way, in the sense that no action that can interfere with the performance is meant to be taken. In this way, any other element that could possibly function as a reference (or even signified) is imposed on the top of music and is decorative. In this situation, music wins again.

Read More »Music always wins | Longleash Trio | New York

Live recording of Mise en abîme by Altera Shock | Rīga

Two years after the premiere of my piece Mise en abîme in Riga, I have managed to retrieve the audio files of the recording of that performance! Though the recording suffers from some technical issues (live electronics being recorded only from mics on-stage so lacking a bit of the high frequencies), the spirit of the piece is present here. I think this is probably my most meditative piece so enjoy it in serenity and preferably in dark in your bed!

Mise en abîme is a term used in visual arts to describe a formal technique of placing a copy of an image within itself, often in a way that suggests an infinitely recurring sequence. A common way of experiencing this effect is by standing between two mirrors, seeing, as a result, an infinite reproduction of one’s image. In this piece, I try to imitate this phenomenon in the field of sound. Fragments of music are repeated many times, each time slightly distorted, in order to create perceptually the same effect.

Mise en abîme was commissioned by Arena Festivāls at Riga, Latvia, and was composed in Autumn of 2018. The premiere of the piece took place at VEF Cultural House in Riga on the 30th of October 2018 by Trio ART-i-Shock and Altera Veritas Ensemble collaborating for this unique concert.

This is a LIVE recording of the premiere. Please mind using a pair of headphones, or loudspeakers to listen to this music.

(YouTube painting) “Las Meninas” by Diego Velázquez

Isolation Music at digitIZMir | Izmir

During the second Covid-19 lockdown here in Thessaloniki, I received an email from my very good friend Mehmet Can Ozer to contribute to his festival digitIZMir with a video improvisation. I thought this would be a nice opportunity to experiment with a Korg littleBits analogue synth kit I bought a few years ago. In my electronic works, I seek usually for high sound fidelity. This time, I wanted to play in the field of lo-fi electronics. I programmed a simple granulation engine in SuperCollider, plugged the analog synth into my audio interface, and recorded everything with my camera’s onboard microphone on the fly. Tinkering the hardware and experimenting in this way always brings to me memories of my childhood, when I was enjoying so much to disassemble my toys in order to understand how they work and finding ways to make completely new use out of them!

You can watch the video on 13.12.2020, 31 (CET) on the festival’s YouTube channel. Enjoy!

Read More »Isolation Music at digitIZMir | Izmir