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For our special feature on Athens, Tristan Bera for Hémisphère son invites us to take a chronological look back at the musicological milestones and key personalities of the second half of the 20th century, and to immerse ourselves in a musical cosmos that is both autonomous and connected. The booming Greek capital questions, attracts and holds a fascinating history of contemporary music, little known outside musicological circles. With its wealth of independent venues, the city has managed, not without fascinating detours, to organize its chaos outside the institutionalized circuits, offering ever more experimental music to be heard.
When Hémisphère son commissioned me to write a series of articles on the contemporary music scene in Athens, I was leaving with a double handicap: both a foreigner (not to say barbarian) to the city and a neophyte when it came to contemporary music; but also with a double advantage: on the spot and accompanied by the best guides. I'd like to start by thanking Lorenda Ramou - pianist/performer, professor at the Odeion Athinon, the Athens Conservatory, and programmer at Stegi - Onassis - who accompanied me through the twists and turns of a little-written history, and Katerina Tsioukra - musicologist - who is working, alongside the director of the Conservatory Archives Haris Xanthoudakis, on the third volume of a History of Greek Music dedicated to the avant-gardes of the 20th century. Both have enabled me to grasp the origins of the specificity and richness of the Athenian scene, and, following Katerina Tsioukra's advice, to evaluate it for what it is and not what it is not.
Interviews with Theodore Vazakas of the ARTéfacts ensemble and composer and pianist Filippos Raskovic, who initiated the Krama festival alongside Agelos Pascalidis, Niki-Danai Chania and Thodoris Triantafillou, helped me find my way through the evolution and current status of the scene since the mid-2000s.
The birth of composer Manos Hadjidakis was celebrated on October 23. Manos Hadjidakis (1925-1994), and the newspapers recalled not only his proximity, in the 1940s, to the intellectual and artistic avant-garde (the poets George Seferis and Odysseas Elytis, and the painter Yannis Tsarouchis), and the Oscar for best original song in 1961 for "Les Enfants du Pirée" performed by Melina Mercouri in Jules Dassin's film Jamais le Dimanche, but also his decisive contribution to the promotion of modern music. Indeed, in 1962, the man who had bridged the gap between art music and rebetiko, financed and organized a composition competition in Athens at the Doxiadis Institute of Technology - named after Konstantinos Doxiadis, the chief architect of Islamabad and "father of ekistics" - from which IannisXenakis and Anestis Logothetis tied for first place, and whose list of participants covered almost all the outstanding composers of the following decades. We can mention, for example, Yannis IoannidisTheodore Antoniou, Stephanos Gazouleas and future music critic George Leotsakos. It was as early as Greece's entry into NATO in 1952 that, in the context of the Cold War, the Greek musical avant-garde began to organize itself, benefiting from the financial support and cultural influence of the Americans in competition with Soviet music. For example, the piece Metastasis (1953-54), structured on the mathematical ideas of Le Corbusier, which combines an Einsteinian conception of time with the memory of the sounds of war, and which brings Xenakis into the international history of music, is already being performed in 1958 at theAmerican Union.
Some say the story began with the tragic and untimely death of Nikos Skalkottas (1904-1949), disciple of Arnold Schöneberg and Kurt Weill, master without pupils, author of the illustrious Greek Dances. However, for musicologists, Hadjidakis' competition for the composer-architect Xenakis, already exiled in France to escape political persecution, marked the definitive starting point for musical modernism in Athens. At the same time, Hadjidakis founded and directed the Athens Experimental Orchestra (1964-1966), which in its two years of existence gave some twenty concerts and premieres by Greek composers.
The jury of this legendary competition, whose conductor is the American Lukas Foss, includes Jani Christou and John G. Papaioannou (1915-2000) - not to be confused with composer and teacher Yannis A. Papaioannou (1910-1989), nor with the rebetiko singer Yannis Papaioannou -. Papaioannou is a key figure in the development of the scene, "a graphic figure" whose archives are a goldmine for the musicology being written at the Odeion, and the primary source for the book being prepared by Katerina Tsioukra. His career is intrinsically linked to the promotion of contemporary music in Athens: he founded, for example, the Société des Amis de Skalkottas, which works to recognize the composer as a pioneer; and the Studio für Neue Musik at the Goethe Institute in collaboration with composer Gunther Becker.
While, on the one hand, the Athens Festival, created in 1955 to take place every summer from July to September, aims, in its musical section, to produce internationally-renowned artists and ensembles, on the other hand, the Hellenic Association for Contemporary Music (created in 1965) and the Greek section of theISCM organized the Hellenic Weeks of Contemporary Music in 1966/67/68/1971 and 1976, thus helping to promote avant-garde Greek composers. The Festival reached its peak in the mid-1960s, before declining during the colonels' junta (1967-1974) and reorganizing itself in 1998, incorporating the Epidaurus Classical Theatre Festival. Between 1974 and 1982, Hadjidakis was a key figure on the Athenian and Greek scene: he directed the National Orchestra and the Third Program of Hellenic Radio and Television (ERT) from 1976 to 1980, and gave a boost to the career ofHaris Xanthoudakis (a pupil of Xenakis), for example. In 1989, he created the Orchestre des Couleurs. The end of the dictatorship enabled Iannis Xenakis to recover his passport and, in 1979, to found KSYME-CMRC, a research center in Cholargos, with the collaboration of John G. Papaioannou and Stephanos Vassiliadis, dedicated to the development of electroacoustic music and sound practices in Greece. From the outset, the center benefited from cutting-edge technological equipment, notably the UPIC (Unité Polyagogique Informatique du CEMAMu), the computer-assisted musical composition tool invented by the composer, but only began operating actively as a research center in 1986. Until 1991, due to the absence of an equipped concert hall and a permanent chamber ensemble, the promotion of contemporary music was carried out by foreign alliances, led by the French Institute, the Goethe Institute and the American Union. Among the composers of this avant-garde period, there are no names of women composers in the historical registers. Katerina Tsioukra's observation of a cruel lack of diversity or invisibilization is nuanced by the fact that she nevertheless cites Alexandra Lekka-Sakali (1917-2012) and insists on the presence of women among performers and musicologists. When will a story or film like Sisters with transistors about Greek women composers?
The Mégaron was inaugurated on March 21, 1991. Originally equipped with two concert halls with excellent acoustics, the National Opera building now hosts most of the National Orchestra's performances. Its programming dominates the music scene. The tutelary figure of this new period is undoubtedly the Greek-American naturalized composer and conductor Theodore Antoniou (1935-2018). A student of Yannis A. Papaioannou, influenced by Jani Christou and serial techniques, attended the Darmstadt Summer School under Boulez, Stockhausen and Ligeti, was a multi-award-winning composer and tireless teacher, presiding over the destiny of contemporary music at the National Association of Greek Composers and in the experimental department of the National Opera. He left behind some 450 works, a number of which are said to have been written in a hurry during his incessant Boston-Athens flights. Most composers between the ages of forty and sixty passed through Antoniou's class, leaving an indelible mark on the new generation. In the latter part of the 20th century, composers whose technique, formal cohesion and clarity of musical thought finished by creating a solid modern tradition. After the generation of composers active from the 1960s(Dimitris Dragatakis, Yorgos Sicilianos, Yiannis Ioannidis, Michalis Adamis, Dimitris Terzakis), a new wave emerged in the 1980s(Giorgos Kouroupos, Giorgos Koumendakis, Iossif Papadatos, Minas Alexiadis, Calliope Tsoupaki).
At the end of the 20th century, a younger, more diverse generation emerged, living mainly outside Greece, and proving itself on the international scene(Marianthi Papalexandri Alexandri, Sofia Avramidou, Minas Borboudakis, Konstantia Gourzi, Panayiotis Kokoras, Georgia Koumara, Alexandros Markeas, Nicolas Tzortzis, Georgia Spiropoulos...).
The country's only contemporary music institute at the start of the 21st century is the Institute for Research in Music and Acoustics (IEMA), founded in 1989 by composers Haris Xanthoudakis and Kostas Moschos and ethnomusicologist Marios Mavroidis, which focuses on technological developments and the cataloguing of works by contemporary Greek composers. A recurring annual event from 2012 to 2020, OPEN DAY involves nearly one hundred musicians each year, and programs John Cage (2012), Mauricio Kagel (2013) and Karlheinz Stockhausen (2014), under the artistic direction of composer and musicologist Anargyros Deniozos.
In 2011 - concomitant with the aftershocks of the 2008 financial crisis, which only really made themselves felt in 2012 - the opening of Stegi Onassis, the Onassis Foundation's cultural center dedicated to contemporary forms of expression, gave the city of Athens the means to fulfill its ambitions by organizing concerts and meetings, and providing real financial support to a precarious experimental scene. A perusal of Stegi's website will reveal the growing number of contemporary music initiatives under the artistic direction of Christos Carras. Take, for example, the OTON project, which in 2018 brings together the ARTéfacts and Ventus ensembles, a group of ten men (again) with brass, electronic keyboard and percussion, Turkish composer Tolga Tüzün and ten students from the Athens School of Fine Arts(ASFA), and seeks to sonically translate the city and the simultaneously familiar and strange impressions it conjures up. Or the Soundscapes Landscapes Rhizome II (2018) created by the Medea Electronique group (formed in 2006) to reveal the unconscious and hidden parts of the Iera Odos, Gazi, Kerameikos and Metaxourgeio districts. Or the spiritual tribute paid to Giacinto Scelsi (2018) by the TETTTIX ensemble. In 2017, documenta 14 organized a magnificent exhibition in the buildings of the Odeion Athinon, curated by Pierre Bal-Blanc, which gave pride of place to modern and experimental music, and also programmed, as part of its associated events, a performance by the Ergon ensemble featuring pieces by Jani Christou and John Cage.
MedeaElectronique2018_Soundscapes Landscapes about 3 Rhizomes and an Installation from Medea Electronique on Vimeo.
At the same time, the underground was getting organized. Athens saw the emergence of independent venues, born of private initiatives and totally autonomous. Theodore Vazakas of ARTéfacts, cites: ABOUT; KNOT Gallery; the Embros Theatre, a squat in Psyrri; the Trianon, on Patision Street; and the Parnassos, on Plateia Karitsi, the first concert hall in Athens in terms of acoustics before the Megaron was built. The ABOUT space operated until 2013 and, generic and easy to access, was able to host numerous events and a loyal, passionate audience... Composer and pianist Frederic Rzewski is said to have exclaimed on arriving for his performance: "I didn't know there were so many anarchists in Athens!". KNOT Gallery was founded in 2009 by Danae Stefanou and Yannis Kotsonis, who also form the electroacoustic duo Acte Vide, and organizes free improvisation workshops and spontaneous events. Lorenda Ramou insists on the absolute DIY spirit of the Athenians, citing the example of concert performers willing to glue their own concert posters. When there is no longer a state, we have to rely on private patronage and organize ourselves individually or in small groups to support research and practice, in order to survive.
Composer, pianist and organizer of the Krama festival, Filippos Raskovicwho is part of the emerging generation, lists the richness and activity of the experimental scene, citing a number of Greek labels whose news should be followed with the utmost urgency: Granny records, Studio Ennia, Polyscope, E.C.T, June records, Rekem records, Modal Analysis, Thalamos, Nutty Wombat. During the festival at Espace KEIV, I was able to witness the attraction Athenians have for the cross-disciplinary musical practices disseminated in independent venues. Electronic music, increasingly diversified, naturally attracts its share of regulars and fans, as I noted last October at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation(SNFCC) on the occasion ofEartheater's concert with Patrick Belaga. The concert was preceded by performances by Soho Rezanejad andEvita Manji, a close collaborator of composer-producer-performer Sophie, whose death in Athens on the last full moon of 2020 gave tragic impetus to the rise of the new emerging experimental electronic scene.(Several other articles would be necessary to take stock of the origins and references of this scene, its venues and audiences, which make minorities considerably more visible in urban space).
The proportion of composers in Greece per ten million inhabitants is statistically particularly high, while investment in experimental creation is not on a par with France, Germany or Great Britain, and the discipline of musicology is still in its infancy. "It's amazing how much we know about Beethoven and how much we don't know about Greek music," Katerina Tsioukra told me. Athens is a chaotic city, a city that raises questions, a city whose face has not been fixed by institutions, which makes it totally open and absolutely inspiring. What is needed - and all the enthusiasts are organizing themselves to counter the financial difficulties - is to "find a balance that can deal with the city's imbalance", according to Lorenda Ramou. As preparations for the transcontinental celebration of the centenary of Xenakis 's birth(see below) are launched on the meta-xenakis platform, which brings together Greece, France, the United States, Mexico and Japan, perhaps it's worth remembering, to link urbanism, architecture and music one last time, a thought by Konstantinos Doxiadis on the future of Athens: "What human beings need is notu-topia (non-place) buten-topia (in-place), a real city they can build, a place that satisfies the dreamer and is acceptable to the scientist, a place where the projections of the artist and the builder merge. "
