Few days ago, on Saturday 26th of April, I performed for the first time with the Plectrum Strings Orchestra of Athens and it was amazing! The concert took place at the German Evangelist Church in Athens Greece, a great place for a mandolin orchestra as it helps create ambient sound that for mandolins is just fantastic.
The concert was sold-out, although a National soccer game took place at the same time and day which means traffic jams and other similar problems for those coming to the concert.
Here is the flyer we created for the concert. It was also very-very good, a work of a professional but created by a member of the orchestra who is not only talented in music, obviously!
Those of you reading my blog know that playing again with a mandolin orchestra was part of my plans for many years, so I am so happy to become an active octave mandolin musician again.
I started playing music as a member of a mandolin orchestra when I was just 7 years old, and that beautiful journey lasted more than 30 years, till our “maestro” Fotis Aleporos, a very well known musician in Greece and for most greek people almost identical with the mandolin tradition of Ioanian Islands, passed away and the orchestra stopped performing.
I was then about 35 years old and although I wanted to find a way to continue playing music, for sentimental reasons I never joined any of the other mandolin orchestras although I received invitations.
But now, the dream finally came true.
The program of the concert was demanding, as it included works from Vivaldi, Weiss, but also Piazzola and others.
I am preparing sound clips and videos, hoping you will enjoy them as much as I enjoyed playing!
