‘Days of Music’ to begin on Rhodes for the third year
For the third year running, the island of Rhodes is putting together an impressive lineup of recitals, chamber music concerts and opera with a mini-festival titled «Days of Music.» Events are due to begin on Wednesday and will run until September 29 with all of the productions organized by the festival in cooperation with ensembles such as the Virtuosi di Praga, a highly esteemed chamber music orchestra. «Days of Music» events fall under the auspices of the Rhodes Cultural Organization, headed by Manolis Andonoglos. The art director is Tassos Venetoklis working in cooperation with Christos Tsene, chief adviser for the concert organizers Formix. With the support of the Ministry of Culture, this institution aims at promoting the island’s cultural character abroad and helping it to develop an alternative type of tourism. «Days of Music» brings to the spotlight music from the Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque periods and it is further enhanced by the music research projects it supports. One of the highlights this year is a presentation of «Olympiad,» an opera based on a 18th-century libretto by Metastasio, in which compositions related to the ethics of sportsmanship and friendship in Ancient Olympia were written by Vivaldi, Pergolese and Paisiello, among others. Based on research by Maria Gryparaki, a concert was put together of excerpts from these operas which will be performed by the Virtuosi di Praga, conducted by Nikos Tsouchlos, at the Palace of the Grand Masters on September 29. The same concert will be performed in Prague in 2003. The program of events, which will take place at both the Palace of the Grand Masters and the Church of the Panaghia tou Castrou, starts on Wednesday with a recital for cello and piano by Michel Pascal and Ferline Studi of works by Beethoven, Saint Saens and Brahms, followed on Thursday by a concert of Theodorakis and Hadjidakis songs performed by Maria Farandouri and Yiannis Vakarelis. Two days later, the Rosenberg Capella Consort will play music from the European courts of the early Renaissance period, while on September 24, Markellos Chrysikopoulos will give a harpsichord recital. The Virtuosi di Praga will appear on September 27 and 29. The most heavily traded stocks included OTE, with a daily average of 13.84 million euros, and Bank of Attica (8.89 million), which, however, included one big transaction, the sale of a 17-percent stake by Commercial Bank.
