See moreA beautiful and exceptional live recording, Concert in Athens, is the tenth ECM release by Greek composer of music for stage and screen, Eleni Karaindrou. With Eleni herself on piano and the Camerata Friends of Music Orchestra, it incorporates moving performances by guests Kim Kashkashian and Jan Garbarek.
The US violist and the Norwegian saxophonist have each made important contributions to Karaindrou's music in the past, Garbarek with his playing on the film-score for The Beekeeper (recorded on Music for Films) and Kashkashian as the key musical protagonist of Ulysses' Gaze. Themes from both those films are revisited on this album, amongst much that is new.
A primary emphasis is music written for theatre: the wide-reaching emotional scope of pieces for plays by Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams and Edward Albee provides a wonderful context for bringing the guest musicians into contact with Eleni's soloists, above all the brilliant oboist Vangelis Christopoulos. Recorded November 2010, with Manfred Eicher as producer, Concert in Athens gives perhaps the fullest picture of Eleni Karaindrou's outstanding compositional creativity to date.
Personnel: Kim Kashkashian (viola), Jan Garbarek (tenor saxophone), Vangelis Christopoulos (oboe), Eleni Karaindrou (piano), Camerata Friends of Music Orchestra, Alexandros Myrat (conductor)