Epidaurus Festival 2025, Athens
7th - 11th July 2025

The Chamber Orchestra of Europe first worked with Constantinos Carydis last year at Athens’ Megaron. Together, they performed works by Schnittke, Koukos, Shostakovich, Beethoven, Ives and Skalkottas. The concert also featured pianist Jan Lisiecki and COE soloists Lucy Gould and Steven Copes. Later on that year, the COE performed in Athens again, this time at the Epidaurus Festival with Sir Simon Rattle and Magdalena Kožená in a programme by Mahler, Dvorak, Bartok and Schubert. We are thrilled to have been invited to the festival again, on 10th July, to perform a world premiere by Constantinos Carydis’s mentor and former artistic director of the Epidaurus Festival (2000-2003), Periklis Koukos, a composer of international calibre. The work, O Lightless Light! Ode to Oedipus, is dedicated to Constantinos Carydis and its melodic elements were drawn from the composer’s music for the production Oedipus at Colonus, which was presented by the Amfi-Theatre at the Ancient Theatre of Epidaurus in 2005. O Lightless Light will feature baritone Tassis Christoyannis who, in addition to operatic roles, is also known for his recordings of French melodies with American pianist Jeff Cohen, primarily for the Palazzetto Bru Zane and Aparté.

The programme’s first half then features a rare collaboration between Carydis and pianist Francesco Piemontesi, with whom the COE has worked a number of times over the last decade, predominantly at the Settimane Musicali di Ascona whose Artistic Director is Francesco himself. On this occasion, they will perform in Franz Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 2, which, in contrast with the virtuosic Piano Concerto No. 1, has a more collaborative approach where the pianist sometimes becomes an accompanist to the woodwinds and strings. In fact, after the opening, the pianist never has the theme in its original form but rather seems to create a series of inventive variations which lead the listener through thematic transformations. Hence Liszt called this concerto a Concerto Symphonique, while in manuscript.

The second part of the concert features just two performers on stage, presenting a brief yet poignant piece by English composer Henry Purcell. Originally composed as incidental music for an English adaptation of Sophocles’ Oedipus, the piece delivers a moving message: “Music for a while Shall all your cares beguile,” sings the baritone singer, subtly referencing the evening’s opening work. At the same time, it serves as a prelude to the tragedy to be unfolded in the last work of the evening, Berlioz’s Symphony Fantastique. Composed at the height of 19th-century Romanticism, the Symphonie sets an unrequited love affair into music. What begins as a dream slowly morphs into a nightmare, culminating in the grotesque round dance of the witches’ sabbath in the final movement.

Constantinos Carydis’ recent appearances include performances at the BBC Proms in London‘s Royal Albert Hall with Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen as well as invitations from Wiener Symphoniker, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, Filarmonica della Scala, Oslo Philharmonic, and a new production of Idomeneo at the Bavarian State Opera’s Munich Opera Festival.

The 2024/25 season leads him to orchestras such as Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra in Helsinki, Gürzenich-Orchester Köln, the Orchestra of Teatro San Carlo in Naples and Orquesta Filarmónica de Gran Canaria. He will also return to work with Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg and Chamber Orchestra of Europe.

Constantinos Carydis has previously worked with orchestras such as the Wiener Philharmoniker, Berliner Philharmoniker, Symphony Orchestra of the Bavarian Radio, Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln, Deutsche Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Konzerthausorchester Berlin, Münchner Philharmoniker, Bamberger Symphoniker, Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich and City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra.

Read full biography on the Harrison Parrott website.