The Lullaby Project: Love becomes music
The Lullaby Project returns, for the third year running, to the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center, in partnership with the musical social integration project El Sistema Greece and New York’s Carnegie Hall.
Watch the concert here:
In this year’s Greek version of the Lullaby Project, El Sistema Greece breaks new ground to welcome not only mothers, in celebration of the parental relationship in all of its forms. Women in refugee centers, immigrants, “aunties” taking care of babies that had to be removed from their families, a dad who is both dad and mom at the same time, and a transgender woman fighting a legal battle for her right to see her 9-year-old daughter, are but a few of the “parents” who share their feelings and thoughts on the little people in their lives with professional musicians, and translate their experiences into music, creating original and unique musical tracks.
Once again, like every year, the program invites composers who represent different music genres, to explore and decode our most defining coexistence: our relationship with our children.
The innovative community program Lullaby Project was born in December 2011 in New York, by the Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute, which brought together new mothers and pregnant women with musical artists, in order to write and sing lullabies to their babies, and continues until the present day. The songs that they create are presented at the Lullaby Project’s renowned concerts, performed by such artists as the famous mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato, Fiona Apple, and Natalie Merchant.
As part of its effort to support the social integration of vulnerable groups through music, Carnegie Hall has partnered with El Sistema Greece, a musical social integration program that offers free musical education to children and young people, with the aim of creating a community centered on music, free of restrictions and discriminations. The SNFCC has supported the organization from its early days, and repeatedly welcomes students from El Sistema Greece, giving them the opportunity to take part in high quality performances, and gain invaluable comprehensive experiences in the world of music.
Presenter / Narrator: Eliana Chrisikopoulou
Video editing: Dimitris Gotsis
Director of photography: Giorgos Bisdikis
Composers: Jan Van de Engel, Maria Gouvali, Giannis Ismyrnioglou, Blend Mishkin, Maria-Christina Harper, Albert Sanz, Konstantina Christou
Musical Direction: José Ángel Salazar Marín
Vocalists: Eleni Arapoglou, Eirini Tzamtzi, Giorgos Tziouvaras (Tenorman)
Participating musicians (professionals and students at El Sistema Greece):
Violin: Elli Vasileiou, Jeben Klapakis, Giannis Ismyrnioglou, Rafael Koutsomitopoulos, Katerina Dobara, Giorgos Panagiotopoulos, Manon Pidoux, Katerina Baskouta
Viola: Eleni Liora, Ariadne Prapa
Cello: Alexandros Kasartzis, Marina Tsingou
Double bass: Evangelos Saklaras
Flute – Piccolo: Konstantina Roussou
Clarinet: Giannis Ismyrnioglou
French horn: Francis Gagliardi
Trumpet: Theodosis Smyrnios
Percussion: Stefanos Athinaios, Aggeliki Lapaki
Harp: Μαρία-Χριστίνα Harper
Piano: Elena Hounda
With the participation of members of the El Sistema Greece Youth Choir
