Lesvos: Summer 2024 Mytilini Music Festival Announced

Castle of Mytilini. Photo source: www.kastra.eu

The Municipality of Mytilini on the island of Lesvos recently announced the city’s first international music festival that will take place this summer.

According to Deputy Mayor Erifili Hioteli, the festival will aim to boost the island’s development; normalize relations with Türkiye; and integrate immigrants through culture.

The “Mytilini Municipality Music Festival 2024” will take place from July 25 to August 4 and feature concerts by prominent artists and music groups as well as amateur and student ensembles.

In addition, to highlight the educational character of the festival, music masterclasses (violin, violoncello, opera, piano, classic guitar, chamber music) will be given by leading Greek musicians, lyricists, conductors and soloists.

Photo source: Municipality of Mytilini

The “Mytilini Municipality Music Festival 2024” will open July 25 with a “choir meeting”, a vocal ensemble of Larnaca Municipality under the musical direction of Andreas Gerolemou, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the invasion of Cyprus. The musical evening will feature classical and contemporary melodies with works by Cypriot and Greek composers.

The evening of July 26 will be dedicated to Nobel Prize-winning and Lesvos-born Greek poet Odysseus Elytis, where a combination of music and speech will highlight his work.

On July 30, the Mytilene Music School will perform a concert with the artistic ensemble of young refugees hosted on the island.

During the music festival, a musical-theatrical analog between original music and speech will also take place. Under the title “Like a Bundle of Roses”, the audience will be introduced to the poetry of Greek poet Kostas Karyotakis while exploring the erotic, social, and political conflicts he caused through his poems.

The festival will include a classical music recital (August 1) by two renowned violinists, Apollon Grammatikopoulos, concertmaster of the Athens State Orchestra, and Mehmet Yasemin from Turkey.

Photo source: Athens State Orchestra

Under the auspices of the Athens State Orchestra and in collaboration with Derya Turkan, the recital will also feature the renowned “Athens String Quartet”, playing a combination of classical and traditional music of Greece and Turkey. Additionally, a series of works by Greek composers, arranged exclusively for the ensemble, will also be performed.

Venues for the events of the “Mytilini Municipality Music Festival 2024” will be places of historical, cultural and religious significance and are expected to be announced soon.