5th Annual Dr. Dimitri and Irmgard Pallas Lecture in Modern Greek Studies
Toward a Greek National Music
Lecture by Maestro Constantine Kitsopoulos

7pm, Thursday, February 15, 2007
Michigan Union, Pendleton Room

How was the national tradition of Greek classical music established?  Through a journey into Greece’s musical past, conductor and pianist Constantine Kitsopoulos will illustrate how the works of composer Manolis Kalomiris embody the rich and varied musical heritage of Greece.  His operas, in particular, combined melodies from Byzantine times with folk songs and rhythms taken from the rembetika style.  In his own way Kalomiris captured the Greek spirit and created a unique national musical theatre.  He was born in Smyrna in 1883 and died in Athens in 1962.  After studying in Vienna, he settled in Greece in 1910 where he worked as a composer, teacher, administrator and writer. His best-known operas are The Masterbuilder and Constantine Palaiologos, both based on plays by Nikos Kazantzakis.  In addition to operas, his large output includes symphonies, orchestral pieces, concertos, incidental music, chamber music, songs, and piano pieces. Maestro Kitsopoulos will illustrate his lecture by performing excerpts on the piano.

Constantine Kitsopoulos has made a name for himself as a conductor whose musical experiences comfortably span the worlds of opera and symphony, where he conducts in such venues as Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall and Royal Albert Hall, and musical theater, where he can be found leading orchestras on Broadway. Named music director of the Queens Symphony Orchestra in September, he conducted his first concert in this capacity on November 17, 2006. He continues as general director of Chatham Opera, which he founded in 2005. His first recording, Baz Luhrmann’s production of La Bohème, was released by Dreamworks in 2002.

Co-sponsored by the Dr. Dimitri and Irmgard Pallas Annual Lecture in Modern Greek Studies Fund, the Modern Greek Program and the Foundation for Modern Greek Studies.