Growing
steadily over the years, the International Pharos Chamber Music Festival is
considered nowadays one of the most renowned festivals of its kind in the
eastern-Mediterranean region. The Festival, which has established itself as
the highlight of the Pharos Arts Foundation's Concert and Recital series,
has achieved to make chamber music more accessible, with performances of the
highest standard, stimulating programmes and affordable tickets. Guided by a
visionary spirit and dedicated to artistic excellence and innovation, the
Festival attracts over 1.500 visitors every year. The Festival maintains
also a strong tradition of community service, with educational concerts
organised for primary education students of the surrounding areas.
In May 2010, the Festival celebrates its tenth anniversary!
The 10th International Pharos Chamber Music Festival will feature 18
internationally renowned musicians including the legendary cellist Natalia
Gutman, clarinettist Charles Neidich, the outstanding pianist Konstantin
Lifshitz, and one of the most sought-after singers of our time, the
brilliant mezzo-soprano Zandra McMaster. All artists will join forces for
six concerts throughout an intensive week of music-making that will
encompass an astonishing array of instrumental combinations for violin,
viola, cello, double-base, piano, clarinet, horn, bassoon and voice. There
is some mouthwatering music to look forward to, including Schumann's Fairy
Tales, Schubert's Octet and Beethoven's Septet. Festival concerts take place
in the intimate Gothic Hall of the Royal Manor House at Kouklia in
Palaipaphos, which is one the finest surviving monuments of Frankish
architecture on the island.
The Venue and
Surrounding Area
Festival concerts take place in the intimate Gothic Hall of the Royal Manor
House at Kouklia in Palaipaphos, which is one the finest surviving monuments
of Frankish architecture on the island. The building also houses an
archaeological museum, which records the rich history of human activity in
the region from about 2800 BC to the present day. The UNESCO World Heritage
site constitutes part of the Cyprus Tourism Organisation's 'Aphrodite's
Cultural Route', embracing nature sites connected to the goddess as well as
museums and archaeological sites. Palaipaphos, or Old Paphos, was a
city-kingdom of Cyprus and one of the most celebrated pilgrimage centres of
the ancient Greek world. It was the site of a famous sanctuary of Aphrodite,
the oldest remains of which date back to the 12th century BC.
Join us in a leisurely exploration of the history and cultural heritage of
the western region of Cyprus. Sites of interest in the area include
Aphrodite's Rock, a few miles southeast of Kouklia, where the foam-born
goddess Aphrodite is said to have risen from the sea; the ancient city of
Curium with its restored amphitheatre; numerous Byzantine churches
containing some of the finest examples of conserved wall painting in the
eastern Mediterranean region; and several wineries where wine-tasting tours
can be arranged.
Programme
Click here to view the full programme
Artists
Violin:
Levon Chilingirian,
Alexander Sitkovetsky,
Hrachya Avanesyan,
Lena Neudauer
Viola:
Philip Dukes,
Diemut Poppen,
Razvan Popovici
Cello:
Alexander Chaushian,
Natalia Gutman,
Oleg Kogan
Double-bass:
Nabil Shehata
Piano:
Ashley Wass,
Konstantin Lifshitz,
Alexandros Kapelis
Horn:
Radovan Vlatkovic
Clarinet:
Charles Neidich
Bassoon:
Amy Harman
Mezzo-soprano:
Zandra McMaster
The
Festival Package
Guests will be able to relax in style at the 5* Columbia Beach Resort or the
4* Columbia Beach Hotel, situated side by side on a secluded Blue Flag beach
at Pissouri Bay. The hotels are within easy reach of the island's two
airports, the towns of Paphos and Limassol, championship golf courses and
other points of interest.
Click here for
more information regarding bookings
The Second
International Contemporary Music Festival
1 - 4 September 2010
The Shoe Factory, Nicosia / 8.30pm, The Olive Grove, Delikipos / 7.30pm
The mission of the Pharos International Contemporary Music Festival is to
propagate the music of 20th and 21st centuries and showcase avant-garde
compositions from all over the world. The Festival also aims to provide a
forum for composers and performers to advance and develop new projects, and
aspires to establish itself as an annual event of international scope.
Now in its second year, the Pharos International Contemporary Music Festival
continues to diversify by presenting four exciting concerts, from 1 until 4
September 2010.
Concerts: 1-3 September 2010/ The Shoe
Factory / 8.30pm
The first three concerts will take place at The Shoe Factory and will
present eight distinguished soloists: the internationally-acclaimed Kreutzer
String Quartet, Jan Philip Schulze (piano), Roger Heaton (clarinet), and
Michael Thompson (horn), as well as the exceptionally talented flutist
Virginie Bove who resides in Cyprus. The programme will include a range of
works' the majority of which will be Cyprus premieres' by over 15
contemporary composers, including Ligeti, Kurtag, Reich, Xenakis and Berio.
The most exciting aspect of the three concerts will be the World-Premiere of
The Pharos Quartets - four newly commissioned works by four Cypriot
composers: Andreas Moustoukis, Vassos Nikolaou, Yiannis Kyriakides and, the
Festival's artistic director, Evis Sammoutis.
4 September 2010 / The Shoe Factory
As part of the 2nd International Contemporary Music Festival, there will be
a number of master-classes arranged for young musicians. The master-classes
will be open to the public. You are all welcome to attend and support the
young Cypriot talents
The programme of the master-classes is as follows:
10.00-10.40: Clarinet (Christiana Antonoudiou)
10.40-11.20: Cello (Doros Zisimos)
11.20-12.00: Piano (Michaella Livadiotis)
12.40-13.20: Violin (Marios Ioannou)
4 September 2010 / The Olive Grove, Delikipos / 7.30pm
(Click here for driving directions)
The last concert will combine acoustic ecology, contemporary dance and
music, and will take place at the breathtaking outdoors concert venue of the
Pharos Arts Foundation, The Olive Grove in Delikipos.
The Olive Grove is a world-class, open-air concert venue, which aims to
deliver relaxed and informal events so that intimacy is developed between
the artists and the audience. The venue is surrounded by the idyllic forest
of Delikipos and is adorned with wooden decks, shallow pools of water, zen
landscaping and a uniquely atmospheric lighting. The audience can relax on
the chairs, blankets and pillows with a glass of wine. Our vision is to make
contemporary art less intimidating for our audience, as we do not want to
lure an audience with popular music but to find innovative ways of
approaching these events to make them more fun and appealing without
compromising quality and vision
The event will comprise two parts of approx. an hour each and a 45 minute
interval:
a) The first part will feature six dancers of the Lee K. Dance Group, who
they will open the programme with one of the most iconic electronic music
works, Luc Ferrari's Presque Rien No. 1 ou le lever du jour au bord de la
mer, which uses sounds from daily life. The sounds of crickets, cars,
people, water and wind, to name but a few, are manipulated and mixed
electronically but never lose their character and are structured in such a
way as to make them sound as natural as possible. The mixing of this work
will allow for these sounds to blend with the sounds from Delikipos, the
real crickets will blend with the 'electronic crickets,' creating a very
intimate atmosphere. The work will not be just listened to; there will be
four site-specific dance installations by four dancers in different spaces
with distinct themes such as water, the earth, man-made structures that
already exist within the space. The audience will walk around these four
spaces, experiencing a visual polyrhythm as the four solo performances will
be performed using four different time divisions / tempi. The programme will
also include Ligeti's monumental Poeme Symphonique for 100 metronomes! A
hundred metronomes ticking together at different speeds gradually stop
naturally one after the other after they ran their course, resulting in
increasingly coherent polyrhythmic structures out of the original cloud of
noise. The last remaining metromome ticking marks the beginning of an
astonishing solo dance work by Korean choreographer Lee Kyungeun, which
entails no formal music.
b) The second part will comprise a concert by one of the most distinguished
percussion groups in the world, the Kroumata Percussion Ensemble from
Sweden. This is an alternative programme consisting of some of the most
famous works written for a combination of percussions. It will surely appeal
to people of all ages and aesthetics and will bring a monumental finale to
the Second Pharos International Contemporary Music Festival.
Programme
Click here to view the full programme
Artists
The
Kreutzer String Quartet
Jan Philip Schulze (piano)
Roger Heaton (clarinet)
Virginie Bove (flute)
Lee K. Dance Group
Kroumata Percussion Ensemble from Sweden
