2nd International Contemporary Music Festival

The mission of the Pharos International Contemporary Music Festival is to propagate the music of 20th and 21st centuries and showcase avant-garde compositions from all over the world. The Festival aims to provide a forum for composers and performers to advance and develop new projects, and aspires to establish itself as an annual event of international scope.

Now in its second year, the Pharos International Contemporary Music Festival continues to diversify by presenting four exciting concerts, from 1 until 4 September 2010.

Concerts: 1-3 September 2010/ The Shoe Factory / 8.30pm

The first three concerts will take place at The Shoe Factory and will present eight distinguished soloists: the internationally-acclaimed Kreutzer String Quartet, Jan Philip Schulze (piano), Roger Heaton (clarinet), Michael Thompson (horn), as well as the exceptionally talented flutist Virginie Bove who resides in Cyprus. The programme will include a range of works – the majority of which will be Cyprus premieres – by over 15 contemporary composers, including Ligeti, Kurtág, Reich, Xenakis and Berio. The most exciting aspect of the three concerts will be the World-Premiere of The Pharos Quartets – four newly commissioned works by four Cypriot composers: Andreas Moustoukis, Vassos Nikolaou, Yiannis Kyriakides and, the Festival's artistic director, Evis Sammoutis.

The Shoe Factory, Nicosia:
The Shoe Factory is situated in the old part of Nicosia, near the buffer zone. Through its International Contemporary Music Festival, the Pharos Arts Foundation is helping to revitalize this beautiful and historic section of the capital city by attracting a wide and diversified younger audience. All concerts are characterized by a unique feeling of intimacy; contemporary music is performed in an exceptionally inspiring setting: a modern venue decorated with contemporary art by mainly local artists; a venue situated in the “run down” part of Nicosia that offers the audience the unique opportunity to sit within an amazing proximity to world famous artists and experience performances in a venue, quite frankly, like no other.

Last Concert: 4 September 2010/ The Olive Grove, Delikipos / 7.30pm

The last concert will combine acoustic ecology and contemporary dance and music, and will take place at the breathtaking outdoors concert venue of the Pharos Arts Foundation, The Olive Grove in Delikipos.

The event will comprise two parts of approx. an hour each:

a) The first part will feature six dancers of the Lee K. Dance Group, who they will open the programme with one of the most iconic electronic music works, Luc Ferrari’s Presque Rien No. 1 ou le lever du jour au bord de la mer, which uses sounds from daily life. The sounds of crickets, cars, people, water and wind, to name but a few, are manipulated and mixed electronically but never lose their character and are structured in such a way as to make them sound as natural as possible. The mixing of this work will allow for these sounds to blend with the sounds from Delikipos, the real crickets will blend with the “electronic crickets,” creating a very intimate atmosphere. The work will not be just listened to; there will be six site-specific dance installations by four dancers in different spaces with distinct themes such as water, the earth, man-made structures that already exist within the space. The audience will walk around these six spaces, experiencing a visual polyrhythm as the six solo performances will be performed using six different time divisions/tempi. The programme will also include Ligeti’s monumental Poeme Symphonique for 100 metronomes! A hundred metronomes ticking together at different speeds gradually stop naturally one after the other after they ran their course, resulting in increasingly coherent polyrhythmic structures out of the original cloud of noise. The last remaining metronome ticking marks the beginning of an astonishing solo dance work by Korean choreographer Lee Kyungeun, which entails no formal music.

b) The second part will comprise a concert by one of the most distinguished percussion groups in the world, the Kroumata Percussion Ensemble from Sweden. This is an alternative programme consisting of some of the most famous works written for a combination of percussions. It will surely appeal to people of all ages and aesthetics and will bring a monumental finale to the Second Pharos International Contemporary Music Festival.

The Olive Grove, Delikipos:
The Olive Grove is a world-class, open-air concert venue, which aims to deliver relaxed and informal events so that intimacy is developed between the artists and the audience. The venue is surrounded by the idyllic forest of Delikipos and is adorned with wooden decks, lakes and rills and a uniquely atmospheric lighting. The audience can relax on the chairs, blankets and pillows with a glass of wine. Our vision is to make contemporary art less intimidating for our audience, as we do not want to lure an audience with popular music but to find innovative ways of approaching these events to make them more fun and appealing without compromising quality and vision.

For more information Email Yvonne Georgiadou, Events co-ordinator of the Pharos Arts Foundation at [email protected]