A major festival featuring musicians from across the jazz spectrum—bringing together the cream of the Greek and international jazz scene—is coming to the Athens Concert Hall. This is a new artistic initiative by the organization, featuring nine concerts to be held from November 5 to 13 in the Banquet and Dimitris Mitropoulos Halls, as well as in the Backstageof the Alexandra Trianti Hall.
Specifically, on Saturday, November 5, Stefano di Battista, a dear friend and collaborator of Ennio Morricone, will bring to life—with his quartet—the legendary film composer’s timeless compositions. On Sunday, November 6, musicians who collaborated with Thanos Mikroutsikos during key moments of his artistic career will perform his compositions in jazz and blues styles, as well as songs set to the poetry of Eleftherios, Cavafy, Kavvadias, Brecht, and Tripolitis. Christos Thivaios will be singing.
On Monday, November 7, jazz meets artificial intelligence and the robot Simon. Dimitris Vasilakis’s research, called «jazz mapping,» involves mapping the language of jazz and aims to highlight its narrative character, providing artificial intelligence with the necessary tools to understand the process of machine learning. The research is being conducted at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA) and at the «Demokritos» National Center for Scientific Research in the Physical Sciences “Demokritos,” in collaboration with the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech), where the robot Simon is being developed. The concert-presentation at the Megaron features compositions written specifically for the robot Simon by Gil Weinberg, its creator, and Dimitris Vasilakis. The ensemble features saxophone, trumpet, piano, bass, drums, guitar, and laptop. As a member of the jazz ensemble, the robot Simon accompanies the band and improvises on the marimba and vocals. In fact, in conjunction with the concert, a roundtable discussion will be held on Tuesday, November 8 (3:00–5:00 p.m.) at Yposkini B, with free admission, as well as educational activities (November 6–8) for teens aged 12 and older and adults as part of the “Shimon Robot and Friends,” with the support of the U.S. Embassy in Athens.
Next up on Tuesday, November 8, the award-winning Norwegian Espen Berg Trio, one of the most important jazz trios of our time, with a program rich in bold melodic shifts and imaginative polyrhythms. On Wednesday, November 9, pianist Sakis Papadimitriou—who, despite being 82 years old, remains a vibrant and creative musician—brings to the stage a unique blend of experience and freshness, nostalgia and passion, staying true to the essence of jazz.
An evening dedicated to inspiring works, in which the aesthetics of classical music meet the improvisational vitality of jazz, is presented by Pappas and Friends on Thursday, November 10. Featuring unexpected musical dialogues between Chick Corea and Mozart, Jacques Loussier and Bach, George Gershwin and Queen.
On Friday, November 11, we will see the acclaimed Cypriot pianist and composer Stavros Lantsias on stage at the Dimitris Mitropoulos Hall (along with Andreas Polyzogopoulos, Michalis Kalkanis, and Michalis Kapilidis), and on Saturday, November 12, the Alexander Drakos Ktistakis Quartet, whose program at the Megaron combines original compositions and songs from the albums «Tora» and «Kyklos» with new, previously unreleased material. The Quartet is joined by singer Katerina Polemi, and together they explore the relationship between jazz and Greek tradition, pop, rock, and classical music.
Finally, on Sunday, November 13, the Dimitris Kalantzis Quartet, following its highly successful interpretations of the works of Theodorakis and Hatzidakis, has prepared a tribute to Michel Legrand, inspired by the music of the French composer, one of the greatest «film» composers of the 20th century. In the educational program «It’s all jazz to me,» journalist Prokopis Doukas talks with pianist Dimitris Kalantzis as part of «Jazz@Megaron» (Nov. 9).
