El Sistema Greece proudly represents Greece at the big concert of the pan-European youth orchestra of the ODE project at the Philharmonie de Paris on the occasion of the French Presidency of the EU Council
Saturday, February 26, 2022 at 21.00
The concert will be broadcasted live!
Six talented young musicians of El Sistema Greece, members of the El Sistema Greece Youth Orchestra, are on yet another exciting musical journey and this time it is in the “City of Light”! Our musicians will represent our country in the big concert that will take place on Saturday 26 February at 21.00 at the Philharmonie de Paris as part of the ODE-Orchestre Demos Europe project, on the occasion of France taking over the presidency of the Council of the European Union from January to July 2022.
Paris undertakes an ambitious and highly symbolic project, uniting 120 young people from the 27 countries of the European Union in a new pan-European orchestra, for one unique performance. Nefeli Dimaki, Irini Papavassiliou, Ioannis Passas, Filippos Spatalas, Theofanis Helmis and Alessio Hyka, have been selected among hundreds of applicants and traveled to Paris on February 19 for an exciting week full of rehearsals and cultural visits. We couldn’t be prouder of these children, some of whom started their music studies at ESG only 3 years ago and today they have managed to stand out among talented peers from all over Europe and participate in this concert on one of the biggest stages of the world.
Within the Orchestre Demos Europe each member state of the EU is represented by 2 to 6 musicians, who having studied the concert repertoire in their own countries, are now following a joint intensive program of daily rehearsals in Paris with distinguished professional musicians from all over Europe as mentors and led by the two internationally renowned conductors of the concert, Corinna Niemeyer and Aurélien Azan Zielinski.
The repertoire of the concert at the Grande Salle Pierre Boulez includes symphonic works covering a wide range of geographical areas and music periods in Europe, while among the composers is also Alexandros Markeas who provided his original composition of “Freedom, She Yells!”, which makes us twice as proud, as El Sistema Greece has repeatedly collaborated since its first years of operation with the internationally renowned Greek composer. In the concert’s triumphant finale, the orchestra will perform “Ode to Joy” from Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, with the participation of the Children and Youth Choir of Orchestre de Paris and children from the EVE program.
The concert, which will be attended by representatives of all EU Member States, the Commission and Parliament, will be broadcasted live on ARTE TV chanel and Philharmonie LIVE and you can watch it here and here.
We do have one more surprise for you though! During his recent visit to Athens, Alexandros Markeas honored El Sistema Greece with an exclusive interview about the presentation of his composition at the ODE project concert and many more interesting things, worth watching by following this link. In this link you can watch the artistic director and maestro of El Sistema Greece, Jose Angel Salazar Marin on our participation in the ODE project.
Such a circumstance never fails to remind us that the greatest reward in our work is watching our children bloom and climb higher and higher with constant study, patience, joy and love for music, which once again unites us in a unique experience that we can all enjoy together, through our screens!
*Démos (Dispositif d’éducation musicale et orchestrale à vocation sociale) is a cultural democratization project aimed at children from neighborhoods covered by the city’s policy or from rural areas with insufficient cultural institutions. In addition to the ODE – Orchestre Démos Europe rehearsals, music education professionals from all the EU countries will come together to hold a professional seminar at the Philharmonie de Paris. They will share practices and experience and discuss the major challenges associated with education policies, seeking new and relevant pathways to building the Europe of the future.
