A new project is taking place in the city of Larisa around the piano. The Piano Plus Festival opens up another path aiming at the support and promotion of young and talented musicians’ work from all over Greece. With the collaboration of Linto Organisation and the artistic support of the Music and Audiovisual Arts Department of the Ionian University, two piano concerts by some of the most important, new generation artists will take place in the city of Larisa.

 

On Tuesday December 6, 2016, at 20:00, we will have the opportunity to enjoy a majestic recital by the renowned Greek pianist and professor of the Ionian University, Lampis Vasiliadis. The concert is entitled The Hero’s Journey and it includes three works by three works of Lountich van Beethoven- the Heroic Variations, work 35, The Fifth Agreement by the same composer transcribed for solo piano by Franz Liszt, and finally the sonata for piano work 109.

 

All three works symbolize three crucial points in the Hero’s life. The motif of the third symphony in a spate of masterful transcriptions for the piano is bustling of energy and will for life while the fugue is clearly illuminated by divine intervention elements.

 

The Fifth Agreement, a monumental piece of work, symbolizes the climax of the personal element in the historical context of the Napoleonic Wars and reflects the drama of the era and the anguish of the Promethean hero for the salvation of the world. The transcription for the piano was edited by Liszt with absolute respect for the original text.

The Sonata work 109 consists an element of reconstruction, as Beethoven, after the tragic confrontations with his own destiny, is reborn in the isolation of his own inner world. It concerns the returning phase which in the concert will symbolically be highlighted by the variations in the final piece of the sonata.

 

Lampis Vasiliadis will explain the commentary of the above correlations to the listener so that they feel the deeper meaning that connects the three projects as the key points in a person's life.

 

Finally, on Wednesday December 7, 2016, at 20:00 we will have the opportunity to attend a unique recital by Andreas Xenopoulos, a doctorate of the University of Nebraska, USA and chairman of the Piano Plus Festival. They will present us with prodigious works of high virtuosity and of the most important composers of the piano repertoire of both the classical and the romantic era, such as Schubert’s The Wanderer’s Fantasy and Medtner’s Sonata Tragica.