Big Bang Festival 4

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Curated by Christos Carras, Myrto Lavda

Big Bang Festival is part of the European Network of Music Festivals for young audiences, and an initiative of Zonzo Compagnie, Belgium.

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The "Odysseys" in Greece | Nomad Project | Sonia Wieder – Atherton
Friday 20:30 | Age guidance: 8+ | Duration: 60 minutes | Main Stage

A performance by the world-renowned cellist, Sonia Wieder-Atherton, which started out as a musical workshop for children. The theme of the workshop was the Odyssey as well as personal narratives recounted by employing sounds that surround us on a daily basis. Sonia Wieder-Atherton participates in Big Bang 4 as a nomad, i.e. a visiting musician; she is here for a short time to work with a group of children who live in Greece, provide them with new musical stimuli and forge new musical paths so that the children can produce their own original material. The material derived from the workshop will be presented by the children in a concert suitable for all ages that will be presented on the OCC main stage.

Sonia Wieder-Atherton has always used music as a language open to the world. It is a personal quest that has led her over the years from one repertory to the next, from one discovery to another, in endless exploration. She has worked with the greatest contemporary composers and appeared as a soloist under the direction of various conductors. In recent years, Sonia Wieder-Atherton has compiled and directed a number of projects that are designed as complete musical and visual experiences.

Concept, direction, cello: Sonia Wieder-Atherton
Realisation of the sound track and sound engineer: Franck Rossi
Recording of the voices: Marius Atherton 


Body, room, environment, planet | Dimitris Patsaros & Anastasia Douka
Saturday & Sunday 11:00, 12:30, 16:00 and 17:30 | Age guidance: 10 months-2 years old | Duration: 30 minutes | Rehearsal Room +4

Imagine a musical performance made of sounds reminiscent of the first sound environment of a baby. Just as any baby develops a different way of listening while growing up, so is this composition transformed through repeated musical themes, synthesiser sounds, children’s instruments and landscape recordings in an ambient and electronic mode. Together with the sound, the senses of the young audience are also aroused by visual stimuli and colour happenings. The children experience a specially arranged sensory environment, whose main feature is light and its refraction through paper. A live installation that works as an electronic planetarium, a cosy space-environment-planet of calmness, which then develops into an observation and exploration area for parents and infants.

Dimitris Patsaros is a musical producer and sound designer. A member of various groups (EchoCanyon, KoobaTercu, Misuse, M.G.C.), he collaborates with the Cavafy Archive, runs workshops of electronic music and composes works for theatre performances, exhibitions and advertisements. He is the father of a 22-month-old boy.
Anastasia Douka is a visual artist (Τoby Devan Fellowship, DESTE Foundation Prize, S. Edes Prize, School of the Art Institute Fellowship). She collaborates with Fondation Hermès, teaches at the University of Thessaly and organizes workshops for adults. She is the mother of a 5-month-old daughter.

Composition & Sound Design: Dimitris Patsaros
Visual curating & Stage set: Anastasia Douka
 
 
Symphony for Abandoned Objects | Max Vandervorst 
Saturday 11:00, 16:30 and 18:30 & Sunday 11:00, 16:00 and 18:00 | Age guidance: 6+ | Duration: 45 minutes | Exhibition hall -1

The orchestra: vacuum cleaner hose, watering can, flower pots, tins, and other lost objects. The friction between the “natural” harmonies of objects and our well-tempered musical culture strikes the spark of original, stimulating music. The European tea-kettle becomes an African drum, while its whistle transports us to Brazil. The performer flies from one instrument to the next, playing on each. He becomes one with the music, mixing strings, woods, percussions, notes, rhythms, inflections and expression. The flower pots, watering can and vacuum hose are long since forgotten... and at the end we remember that initially “symphony” meant “harmony”. After almost twenty years, the Symphony for Abandoned Objects has now become a true classic… its extreme simplicity and innovative humour continue to provoke us.

Max Vandervorst is composer and inventor of musical instruments. Since 1988, he has put together a number of performances, showcasing instruments he created using a wide variety of objects as raw material: Symphony for Abandoned Objects, Concerto for Two Bicycles, The Man from Spa, A Hi(story) of Music(s), and This is Not a Show, have all been performed numerous times in many different countries.

Conception, instruments and music: Max Vandervorst
Director: Jean-François De Neck
Technic: Claire Steinfort  
Production: Curieux Tympan asbl
 
 
Improvise freely | Thodoris Ziarkas, Tasos Stamou & Stephanos Chytiris
Saturday 11:30, 14:00, 16:00 and 19:00 & Sunday 11:30, 14:00, 16:00 and 18:30 | Age guidance: 4+ | Duration: 30 minutes |  Foyer 4+

This musical trio invites children to improvise with traditional and electronic instruments and produce sounds inspired by traditional, jazz and electronic music. Next to each musician’s instrument there are small replicas of “big instruments” in miniature version, where children can try out exercises on free improvisation to the accompaniment and guidance of professional musicians. Through these musical examples, we see how accessible and creative free improvisation can be as an artistic and educational tool of expression and communication between groups and individuals.

Apart from free improvisation with performances in Café Oto and Clapton Sessions (London), TV Control Center (Athens), Basement (Salonika) and Ekhmés Festival (Volos), Thodoris Ziarkas, Tasos Stamou and Stephanos Chytiris have also been investigating the theoretical principles of free improvisation. They have organised lectures on improvisation and are experienced soloists having been tutored by as well as having worked with outstanding performers of the international improvisation scene.

Composer, double bassist: Thodoris Ziarkas
Electroacoustic composer-electronics: Tasos Stamou
Drummer: Stephanos Chytiris 


The View-Master Orchestra: Around the World in 80 pictures | Dimosthenis Grivas
Saturday 11:30, 13:30, 17:00 και 18:30 & Sunday 11:30, 13:30, 16:30 and 18:00 | Age guidance: 3+ | Duration: 25 minutes | 5th floor - Young Theatre Workshop

The View-Master, this legendary device for children of any age, which was shaped like binoculars and used to project static three-dimensional images, begins a magical trip around the world of children, accompanied by live music and video. In our trip, the static image of the View-Master is replaced by video. Objects, natural phenomena, seasons, abstract concepts and anything else that might interest the children of yesterday and today comes to life in 80 moving pictures. A voyage through time that might serve as a bridge between the world of the child and that of the parent.

Dimosthenis Grivas is a composer, musician and producer. He composes music for dance and theatre performances and has collaborated with Yannis Houvardas, Michail Marmarinos, Nikos Karathanos, Konstantinos Rigos, Antonis Foniadakis, default company, Aerites Dance Company and bodies like the National Theatre, the Onassis Cultural Centre, the Athens and Epidaurus Festival, the Athens Concert Hall, the National Theatre of Northern Greece and the Cyprus Theatre Organisation. He has also composed music for performances, video art, sound installations for exhibitions and short films.

Concept, composer, video: Dimosthenis Grivas
Lighting: Christos Lazaridis
Video voice-over: Aggelos Papadimitriou

The View-Master Orchestra
Electric guitar: Dimosthenis Grivas
Piano - keyboards: Kostas Giaxoglou
Drums: Nikos Sidirokastritis
Clarinet, saxophone: Giorgos Kastanos
Contrabass: Chrisostomos Mpoukalis
 
 
Játékok! Games for two and four hands | Paris Mexis, Beata Pincetic & Christos Sakellaridis
Saturday 12:30 and 17:30 & Sunday 12:30 and 17:00 | Age guidance: 5+ | Duration: 50 minutes | Upper stage

In 1973, György Kurtág started a unique piano exploration: he decided to “discover” musical pieces with the candid joy of a child that views the piano as a toy. During the 45 years that have passed since then, he has composed nine volumes of small piano masterpieces, whose basic aim is “the joy of movement and the daring and pleasure of playing.” All this is Játékok! The pianists Beata Pincetic and Christos Sakellaridis, in the roles of two big kids who have booked the same rehearsal space, present some of the most interesting Játékok, in a delightful performance with pantomime elements, animation and lots of humour.
After all, you don’t “do” the piano; you “play” the piano.

Beata Pincetic and Christos Sakellaridis are a distinguished pair of international pianists who perform a duo piano repertoire spanning an era from Mozart to the 21st century. They frequently present works of contemporary composers written especially for them.
Paris Mexis is a prominent director and set designer in the field of opera and musical theatre in Greece and abroad.

Presentation of a selection of pieces from the work Játékok by György Kurtág for two and four hands.
Produced by: Onassis Cultural Centre-Athens
Direction & Dramaturgy: Paris Mexis
Set Design: Paris Mexis, Mariza Soulioti
Video Design: Dionisis Sidirokastritis
Assistant Director: Mariza Soulioti
Sound Engineer: Sotiris Laskaris
Piano: Beata Pincetic
Piano: Christos Sakellaridis
Performer: Voula Kordera
Voice over: Yannis Evaggelidis

 
Apollonius (Kofee) Morris | Negros Tou Moria
Saturday 13:00, 18:00 and 19:30 & Sunday 13:00, 17:30 and 19:00 | Age guidance: 6+ | Exhibition hall -1

MC Negros Tou Moria, who is an emblematic presence in the Athenian rap, joins the OCC Big Bang Festival for the first time to present a musical-visual performance like a fairy tale. In front of the canvas of the visual artist Aristotelis Klitsikas, Negros Tou Moria will relate to us in rap rhythms the story of Apollonius (Kofee) Morris. The only survivor of the disastrous attack of Seltzania against peace-loving Asantopolis, little Kofee, with the invaluable help of his friends, manages to bring peace and love to the warring nations. An original allegory about the power of art and friendship.

Negros Tou Moria is a pun in Greek evocative of “Geros Tou Moria”, the sobriquet of a legendary general of the Greek revolutionary forces against the Turkish occupation. This twist on a symbol of typical Greekness goes a long way towards describing the artist’s ethos, creativity and cultural dichotomy. Negros Tou Moria is an artist that embodies the spirit of 21st century inner city Athens, speaking of and to its affronted youth with his own tenacious swagger. NTM or ‘Black Morris’ is best described as one of the most promising Greek rappers to have emerged in recent years, with unparalleled flow, prodigious beats and music that takes its cues from Europe and the US in equal measure, backed by a selection of intensely talented young producers and artists from a diversity of ethnic backgrounds. Born by Ghanaian parents in the economically depressed Athenian district of Ambelokipi, and growing up in and around the neglected Kipseli neighbourhood, ‘Black Morris’ made his first tentative steps in the world of Greek rap next to the legendary MC TakiTsan and has since gone on to develop his unique and intuitive voice amongst the new breed of his hometown.

Artist: Negros Tou Moria
Graphic designer: Aris Rozopoulos & Pink colleagues
Guitar: Jast

 
Dismantling tools at the Big Bang Festival | Nektarios Pappas & Zafos Xagoraris
Saturday 12:00, 17:30 and 19:00 & Sunday 12:00, 17:30 and 19:00 | People of all ages | Duration: 35 minutes | Dourgouti Park

If silence is golden, what are sounds? Are they small diamonds? Our young friends explore the park in Dourgouti, spot melodies, rhythms and noises of the city and make their own map of small sound treasures. Zafos Xagoraris’ sound Dismantling Tools are a valuable aid in this endeavour (part of the OCC educational programmes, 2017-18). Magical microphones audit the city, collect its sounds and after mixing them well in our sound mixer, we amplify them with our directional loudspeakers and share our treasures with the world.
Hear ye, hear ye!

Nektarios Pappas is a visual artist. His work focuses mainly on sound installations and the provocation of logical discord in the public space. He has also worked in music and the theatre.

Concept & design: Zafos Xagoraris
Direction & sound direction: Nektarios Pappas
Technical advice: Aris Droukopoulos
Performers: Androniki Marathaki, Eva Papadopoulou, Ioulia Pyrrou, Argyris Rallias, Filippos Vasileiou