Press

Monday 19 April 2010

Press Release

The Cretan 2010 Musical Extravaganza

The 7th Casa dei Mezzo Classical and Greek Music Festival, Makrigialos, Crete from 24 June - 29 June 2010.

The Casa dei Mezzo International Music Festival in Makrigialos (on the south east coast of Crete) is now in its seventh year and this year there will be many highlights to look forward to over its six day duration.

Even although Makrigialos is a small village on Crete, we are now no longer a low-key affair, having been invited to stage concerts in other locations such as the acclaimed Wigmore Hall concert in London in 2008, and subsequent concerts in Heraklion and Athens. All of our concerts this year will be recorded by ERT Radio - Greece and will be broadcast by EBU (European Broadcasting Union) throughout Europe.

It is also an honour for us to welcome support from the Prefecture of Lasithi, The Norwegian Embassy and the Norwegian Institute at Athens. We sincerely hope that in the future we will be able to develop a much closer musical connection between Greece and Norway, but at the same time we will not forget that we are an international music festival and we will therefore always present artists from all over the world.

This year the festival opens right next to Makrigialos harbour with the free children's concert which will then be followed by a free Cretan Extravaganza of music and dance led by violinist Vangelis Vardakis. Apart from the two opening concerts which are free, all other concerts (except the closing Opera/Lyric Gala concert) are at the heavily subsidised price of €10 per ticket. Tickets for the Opera/Lyric Gala concert are €15 per ticket.

After the opening night the festival continues at Casa dei Mezzo, apart from the ever popular lunch time concert at Etia, which will take place in the ruins of the old Venetian Villa de Mezzo.

This year the festival has devoted one concert to Greek composers and performed only by Greek artists.

Since their formation in 2009, the piano Trio dei Mezzo have performed at several venues in Europe to critical acclaim. This year we are celebrating the bicentennial of Robert Schumann and so they will be performing his Piano Trio in D minor.

Apart from Schumann, the other two birthdays we are celebrating this year are Frédéric Chopin and Ole Bull. Apostolos Palios (piano) will play the 4 Ballades and Marko Pop-Ristov (violin) will take us on an evocative trip through the mountains of Norway.

This year we give a special welcome to the return visit of Norwegian pianist Sveinung Bjelland who will play Schumann's Fantasie op 17 prior to going to Berlin to record the same piece for the Simax label. Italian lute player Emanuele E. Forni will be playing solo as well as accompanying Norwegian mezzo-soprano Hege Høiæter.

So much more to tell, but make no mistake, this festival is unique to Greece and there is no other festival like it on the island of Crete. Yet again we are proud to offer our visitors not only music of the highest international standard but also beautiful beaches and excellent cuisine.

Yours sincerely,
Gunnar Strømsholm
Festival organiser

Press release [Microsoft Word Document, English]
Press release [Microsoft Word Document, Greek]
Radio commercial [mp3 audio file]
Festival Programme [Adobe Acrobat Document, English]
Ticket reservations and prices