Cycle Transformations

The "Transformations" concert cycle began life as a playful challenge and in the hope that it would bring something new and vibrant, delightful and thought-provoking, into being.

In November 2016, we invited Panos Dimitrakopoulos on kanonaki, Thomas Konstantinou on outi and Dimitris Tsakas on saxophone to come together with an East-West musical encounter in mind. When we asked the three virtuosi to play well-known works from the Western classical repertoire together, they ended up creating their own versions of popular works by Mozart, Bach and Satie, but also a few 'new' approaches borne of the transformative medium of improvisation.

Having decided to pursue this concept of a meeting between the musical timbres and techniques of Eastern and Western music further, we have now placed improvisation—"taksim"—centre-stage. Taking well-known works as their starting point, the musicians are ready to embark on the search for the transformational power of their instrument, their musical genre and its modes of thought and organization.

We have invited Panos Dimitrakopoulos, Thomas Konstantinou and Dimitris Tsakas back to perform improvisations/transformations inspired by and with reference to key works from the Western and Eastern repertoires. A meeting of two musical worlds in the free improvisation of three acclaimed musicians.