CULTURE

Concert-tribute to Theodore Antoniou

Composer Theodore Antoniou has become identified with the avant-garde in the obscure landscape of Greek classical music composition. The great composer, maestro and teacher turns 75 and the time has come for a soiree in his honor – which will take place at the Athens Concert Hall tomorrow at 8.30 p.m. The program will feature four of his most representative works, selected out of a very long list of compositions, all of which are inspired by trends in and interpretations of contemporary music. The four works chosen were written especially for the Camerata Orchestra, which will also be performing them. They are: «Celebration VII,» «Concerto for Strings and Percussion» (which will feature percussionists Dimitris Desyllas and Theodor Milkov), «Jeux» for cello and a strings orchestra as well as «Noble Songs for a Noble Artist,» for which mezzo-soprano Margarita Sygeniotou will join forces with violinist Renato Ripo. Antoniou himself will alternate with Miltos Logiadis, Nikos Tsouchlos and Iakovos Konitopoulos at the podium. One of the most prominent and productive contemporary artists, Antoniou has launched a successful career as a composer, maestro and university professor both in Greece and abroad. He has taught most of the younger generation of Greek composers and has been president of the Greek Composers Union since 1989. He has founded contemporary music ensembles in Greece and abroad and has composed a large variety of works – from operas to chamber music, works for soloists and symphony works as well as theater and film music – many of which were commissioned by major orchestras around the world. Antoniou studied violin, phonetics and composition at the National Conservatory and the Hellenic Conservatory and continued his studies on composition and conducting in Munich and Darmstadt. He taught at Stanford University, the University of Utah and the Philadelphia Academy of Music before becoming a professor of composition at Boston University in 1978, where he recently became a professor emeritus. His international distinctions include the Richard Strauss Prize and the City of Stuttgart Prize and he has repeatedly been recognized with awards by the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers. In January 2000, the Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation gave him the Dimitris Mitropoulos Prize and in 2004 he received the Herder Prize.

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