–YEAR OF MANOS HADJIDAKIS–
10 June
Athens State Orchestra – Lukas Karytinos
Αmerica by Manos X – Part I
The 1960s find the world in constant flux: legions of young people passionately seeking new visions and meanings in life and in art – culminating in the upheaval of May 1968 – while Greece, in particular, grapples with its own native political and social turbulence, leading to the coup d’état in 1967. Manos Hadjidakis stands at a moment of maturity and recognition. He had already been awarded the Academy Award (1961) for Never on Sunday and, more importantly, has succeeded in speaking directly to the soul of Greek –and not only Greek– audiences, weaving together art music and folk legacy in a manner at once natural, profound, and deeply candid.
At this crossroads, he spreads his wings towards the United States, where he resides for several years, consciously retreating from a dire Greek reality, yet also distancing himself from his very own roots, that is, his leanings towards certain sounds, imagery, and the intimacy of his closest circle.
In America, “dancing with his own shadow,” he experiences the universality of Greek music anew, while uncovering unexpected dimensions of his deeply seated sensibility. It is there that he composes the thrilling Gioconda’s Smile (1965), a work that would come to define the artistic quests of its time and stand as a touchstone of modern Greek music. Three years later, in 1968, he composes the score for the western film Blue by the Canadian director Silvio Narizzano. Despite the film’s failure, Hadjidakis’s music emerges as a singular accomplishment, and by virtue of its intrinsic value has endured independently as one of the finest instances in his orchestral oeuvre. This summer, the Athens State Orchestra, under the direction of its artistic director Loukas Karytinos, revisits these two major works by Hadjidakis, marking the centenary of his birth with a tribute worthy of his enduring legacy.