Nikos Platyrachos - "THE SEEDS OF SMYRNA"

An original, musical "cinematic" journey from Smyrna to rebetiko and folk music.

Recorded on Monday, March 13, 2023, at the Athens Concert Hall

Featuring the Orchestra of Contemporary Music & the Choir of ERT
Choir Direction: Michalis Papapetrou

Polis Ensemble
Soloist: Tasis Christogiannopoulos
Featuring Kleoniki Demiri
Conducted by the composer

Like the musical theme of a movie that was never filmed, the "cinematic" journey from Smyrna to rebetiko and folk music is captured in the original musical performance "The Seeds of Smyrna" by Nikos Platyrachos. This performance took place at the Athens Concert Hall on Monday, March 13, 2023, with the participation of the Orchestra of Contemporary Music and the Choir of ERT, following the highly successful tour of its shows in Crete in the summer of 2022.

An original composition initially rooted in Smyrnean songs and music, as well as in the "sowing" of these in the homeland after the Asia Minor Catastrophe, their evolution into rebetiko and folk songs, and even their culmination in what is broadly called entekhno, a journey spanning approximately 40 years. The logic of the performance was a cinematic suspension in the space-time of these events, with a corresponding orchestration for a symphonic orchestra.

The work, created by the composer for the significant years 2022-23, marking the centenary of the Smyrna Catastrophe and the Treaty of Lausanne, consists of two parts:

The first part is instrumental and divided into four sections (Smyrna - Destruction - Hope - Port), where the original musical themes, as well as familiar melodies, emerge one after the other, or in imaginative contrasts (one within the other or in parallel lines), through "bridges" of original music.

The second part consists exclusively of original songs from that period, performed by our international baritone Tasis Christogiannopoulos and the ERT Choir, sealing the performance and completing the audience's connection with a fuller and more intimate experience of their lived memory.

The performance of the work by ERT Orchestra of Contemporary Music and Choir in collaboration with the iconic musical ensemble POLIS under the direction of composer Nikos Platyrachos, offers a wonderful musical result, bringing together high-level artistic forces and paying tribute to Asia Minor and its people.