Vox: The new music venue in the capital
Businessman Ilias Marosoulis had been promising to construct the venue for a while – since the days when he had persuaded Eleftheria Arvanitaki to appear at the Iera Odos. After realizing that the specific venue was not fit for the singer, he decided to offer her something entirely new. And so here comes Vox, the capital’s new musical venue, whose purpose is not to act solely as a small-scale upmarket music hall but which can also be used for a variety of musical events, including rock concerts. Resembling a great club for the young, the new venue has 650 seats and standing room for another 550. Iron was the basic material used for its construction due to the fact that it is set and stage designer Manolis Pandelidakis’s favorite, aiding acoustics and light. «We built it this way in order to keep it this way,» said Marosoulis at a recent press conference. «We hope it will stay like this, because although Athens has a number of musical stages, it does not have such a space offering the proper infrastructure for such alternative usage.» Beginning tomorrow, Arvanitaki and Lavrentis Mahairitsas join forces in a series of live performances. The two artists will also be joined by Isaia Matiamba – who won top marks for his performance on a television talent show – as well as Mahairitsas’s own band, Etairia. What brings Arvanitaki and Mahairitsas together? «We share the same character traits; we are both difficult when it comes to collaborations,» said Arvanitaki at the press conference. Focusing not just on their own, individual repertoire, but also on a common one, the artists will be spending part of the evening on stage together, while Mahairitsas will also perform some more laika, popular tunes.
