Lenia Safiropoulou is a singer, poet and translator. She specialises in concert repertoire, and has given recitals in London, Paris, Lyon, Berlin, Hamburg, Barcelona and Nicosia. She has sung with British and Greek symphony orchestras, and participated in productions at the Bayreuth Baroque Opera Festival, Greek National Opera and Megaron – The Athens Concert Hall. In 2017 she released Sunless Loves (First Hand Records), which features works by Brahms, Prokofiev and Mussorgsky.

Safiropoulou studied at the Musikhochschule in Stuttgart supported by a Maria Callas Scholarship and the Alexander S. Onassis Foundation, and at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama and the National Opera Studio in London, supported by the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. She is a producer for Greek national radio.

www.leniasafiropoulou.gr

Mezzo-soprano Marissia Papalexiou studied at the School of Law of the University of Athens and singing at the Athens Conservatoire, from which she graduated with honours. She completed her musical studies in Düsseldorf with the mezzo-soprano Jane Henschel.

As a soloist, she has collaborated with all of the Greek orchestras, performing works from the operatic and oratorio repertoire as well as works by contemporary Greek composers. She works with the Greek National Opera, Athens Festival and Staatstheater Cottbus, where she has variously appeared as Maddalena (Rigoletto), Suzuki (Madama Butterfly), Carmen, Prince Orlofsky (Die Fledermaus), Bersi (Andrea Chénier), Fenena (Nabucco), Sonyetka (Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk), Nicklaus (The Tales of Hoffmann) and Jenny (Mahagonny).

Greek mezzo-soprano Maria Vlachopoulou has collaborated with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, the Greek Radio Symphony Orchestra, the State and the Municipal orchestras of Athens and Thessaloniki State Symphony Orchestra, performing at opera galas and in oratorios including Vivaldi’s Gloria, Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater, Bach’s Magnificat and Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy. Vlachopoulou has appeared in the roles of Second Witch (Dido and Aeneas), Berta (Il barbiere di Siviglia), Madama Rosa (Il campanello), Baba (The Medium), Mamma Lucia (Cavalleria rusticana) and Zia Principessa (Suor Angelica).

She has made several recordings for Greek radio and Disney.

Founded in 1995 and comprising instrumentalists from major orchestras in Bulgaria, including concertmasters and soloists, and professors from the ‘Pancho Vladigerov’ National Academy of Music, the Sofia Amadeus Orchestra specialises in music from the Baroque period and is recognised for its stylish and refined sound.

The Amadeus Orchestra has performed throughout Bulgaria and at prestigious festivals in Greece and North Macedonia alongside soloists including the cellist Maria Kliegel, mezzo-soprano Christina Angelakova, violinist Vesselin Parashkevov and flautist Yang He. The orchestra has also toured Spain and Italy. The Amadeus Orchestra under principal conductor Svilen Simeonov received Bulgarian National Radio’s Musician of the Year Award in 1999.

The Symphony Orchestra of the city of Pazardzhik, Bulgaria was founded in 1969. Instrumental in its creation were violinist Georgi Koev (1947–2013), who served as its leader over many years, and composer and conductor Ivan Spasov (1934–1996), who was its artistic director from 1970 to 1992. Thanks to them and to its musicians’ enthusiastic response, the orchestra came to hold an important position in the musical scene of Bulgaria, gradually expanding the scope of its activities to include numerous tours in Austria, Germany, Spain, Belgium, Norway, England, the Netherlands and Greece.

Its broad repertoire spans the entire spectrum of symphonic music, opera and operetta. Of particular importance is its contribution in the field of Bulgarian contemporary music, with many composers having written pieces for the orchestra. In 2000, it also assumed the name of the ‘Maestro G. Atanasov’ Orchestra.

The orchestra has recorded several Greek operas (among them La Martire, La Biondinetta and Mademoiselle de Belle-Isle by Samaras, Despo and Frossini by Carrer, and Soeur Béatrice by Mitropoulos), as well as numerous orchestral works by Lialios, Lavrangas, Kalomiris and Philippos Tsalachouris, among others.

www.pazardzhik-symphony.com

Byron Fidetzis was born in Thessaloniki and studied cello and advanced theory at the State Conservatory before moving to Austria to train at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna.

He has been conductor and artistic director of orchestras including the Athens State Orchestra, Thessaloniki City Symphony Orchestra, Greek National Opera, the Ural State Philharmonic Orchestra, Pazardzhik Symphony Orchestra and the Athens Philharmonia Orchestra. Since 2016 he has been artistic director of the Athens Philharmonia Orchestra.

For Naxos, Fidetzis has recorded Samaras’ opera Mademoiselle de Belle-Isle (8.660508–09) and Kalafati’s Symphony in A minor, Légende and Polonaise (8.574132). He also orchestrated and performed Kalomiris’ Rhapsody No. 2 ‘Song to the Night’ (8.572451) and recorded with the Athens State Orchestra Kalomiris’ Symphony No. 3, Triptych and Three Greek Dances (8.557970).

Fidetzis is the recipient of the Spyros Motsenigos Music Award, the Great Music Award and is an honorary member of the Greek Composers Association. He was awarded an honorary doctorate from the school of philosophy, department for musical studies of the University of Athens.

www.fidetzis.gr

Spyridon Samaras was doubtless the most internationally distinguished Greek composer of his time, the first to be revered abroad and the most important of the Second Ionian School of Music. His contribution to veristic Italian opera of the late 19th to early 20th century is being gradually but increasingly uncovered.

Samaras was born in Corfu, on 17 November 1861, the son of the Greek deputy consul Skarlatos Samaras and of Fani, née Courtenay. He began his music studies in Corfu under the guidance of Spyridon Xyndas (1810– 1896), among others. Shortly after his father’s death, in 1875, he enrolled in the newly established Athens Conservatoire. His teachers were Federico Bolognini Sr (violin), Angelo Mascheroni and, most importantly, Enrico Stancampiano (music theory, orchestration). In the meantime, he started composing his first works, most of which were considered lost, until 1985: Fantasia on Errico Petrella’s opera La Contessa d’Amalfi (said to have been performed by himself at Athens Conservatoire on 17 June, 1877), Sérénade, dedicated to Queen Olga (1876 or 1877) and Melancholic Reflections on the death of Cpt Vourvachis, all works for the piano, found in undated Italian publications by Luigi Trebbi, Bologna. Some works that have been referenced in literary sources are still sought after – Youth, waltz for piano (1879), written with compatriot Joseph Kaisaris (1845–1923), his songs for Vlasis Gavrielides (1848–1920), the 1879 comedy Torpedoes (Torpillai), Sonate for violin and piano (1880); Ave Maria for tenor and piano (1880), but mainly the opera Olao in four acts, written in collaboration with his teacher Stancampiano (excerpts were performed at Athens Conservatoire), on 12 January 1880.

In late 1881, or early 1882, Samaras went to Paris to pursue higher education. He entered the Parisian aristocracy, while protected by the music-loving, philhellene marquis De Queux de Saint-Hilaire and princess Trubetzkoy, and was connected with scholar Demetrios Vikelas (1835–1908) and tenor Ioannis Kritikos, but especially baritone Aramis (whose real name was Pericles Aravantinos, 1854?/1857?–1932). He studied for an unspecified period of time with composer and theorist Théodore Dubois (1837–1924) and enrolled in the Paris Conservatoire in the class of Léo Delibes (1836–1891), who is considered by many to be his most important tutor, after Stancampiano.

George Leotsakos

(Extract from 8.660508-09 booklet notes)