Sublime Athens setting to host classical music event

Listed as a protected area for its natural beauty, Lake Vouliagmeni in southern Athens is viewed by most locals as a haunt for the elderly and infirm, who go there to ease their aches and pains in its therapeutic waters, and cave-divers keen to explore its network of underwater labyrinths. In a bid to attract the interest of the wider public and promote the lake as a cultural venue, conductor and clarinetist Dionysis Grammenos is putting together a program of classical music concerts to take place later this year.

Organized with the support of the Latsis Foundation, The Lake of Sounds program begins on Thursday, September 7, with the Thessaloniki State Orchestra in a concert titled “Fairy Tales and Magic,” with special guest Ukrainian pianist Anna Fedorova, artistic director of the recently inaugurated International Chamber Music Festival at Ede in the Netherlands.

The award-winning 27-year-old soloist started piano lessons at the age of 5, performing just two years later in Kiev with the Ukraine Philharmonic. She has since played with the Krakow Philharmonic, the Royal Philharmonic in London and the symphony orchestras of Dallas, Kyoto and Mexico.

She has appeared at Carnegie Hall in New York, Cadogan Hall in London and Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw, and has been awarded the Dorothy MacKenzie Artist Recognition Scholarship Award by the New York-based International Keyboards Institute & Festival.

The program comprises extracts from Tchaikovsky’s “Sleeping Beauty,” Grieg’s “Peer Gynt” and Stravinsky’s “Firebird,” as well as Dvorak and Rachmaninoff.

“The rare beauty of the scenery with the imposing rock reflected in the lake’s waters brought to mind the sounds of an orchestra inspired by fairy tales and heroes,” Grammenos said at a press conference on the event.