"Carmina Burana" in the OId Fortress

   Yesterday there was a great concert inside the Old Fortress. The Greek State S.O. in collaboration with the  local municipal choir "San Giacomo" presented Carl Orff's masterpiece "Carmina Burana". Although I did not attend the concert, it should have been an amazing event. More than three thousand people attended, filling in the esplanade in front of Saint George neoclassical church.
  There are two videos of "O Fortuna" (the most famous part from "Carmina Burana") below. As you can see, the atmosphere was amazing. It was a really unique event for our island.

Vivaldi's "Juditha Triumphans" oratorio by the Philharmonic Society of Corfu

   On August 11th, Corfu celebrates the abandon of the turkish siege of 1716 which was very crucial for the european history. On that day a tremendous thunderstorm forced the turks to break the siege and leave the island. The locals believe that it was St. Spyridon that saved the island from the muslims.
  The doge, in order to commemorate the victory, commisioned the famous venetian baroque composer Antonio Vivaldi to compose a musical piece dedicated to this important event. He eventually composed "Juditha Triumpans", a war oratorio. The plot takes place in ancient Israel where Judith, a young Jewish widow, behead Assirian general Holofernes saving the country from the assyrian king Nebuchadrezzar. Judith's victory is an allegory of Venice defeating the invading turks in Corfu.
  This year, Philharmonic Society of Corfu symphonic wind band performed the famous "Arma, caedes, vindictae, furores" part from the oratorio. On the solo trumpets: Andreas Riggas and Aggelos Protopsaltis.

A special concert featuring only percussion instruments

  Last Monday in the front of Town Hall there was a special concert given by Philharmonic Society of Corfu's percussionists. They performed a wide range of pieces, some of them directed by the dutch percussionist and music teacher Ruud Mourik.
  Below there are two videos from Monday's concert. In the first one, a group of percussionists who back in 1994 performed the first rhythmic solo for percussion while giving a marching show at the Esplanade. The second one is the well-known "Sabel dance" by Khacharturian performed by xylophones, metallophones and other percussion instruments.

The Philharmonic Society of Corfu & Philharmonic Society "Mantzaros" junior band concerts at "Plakada Tou Agiou" square

   Last Friday 20th of July and yesterday, 23rd of July the junior bands of the Philharmonic Society of Corfu and the Philharmonic Society "Mantzaros" respectively gave two marvellous concerts at the Plakada tou Agiou square demonstrating to corfiots and tourists alike the high quality of music education in Corfu.
  The young musicians performed a wide selection of music with passion and dedication and were warmly being applauded by the public each time a musical piece ended.
  I would like to congratulate them for those great concerts, the future belongs to them! Corfuweb1 was there and uploaded five videos from the concerts. Hope you will like them.

"Indiana Jones Raiders March" by the Philharmonic Society of Corfu junior band




Ruud Mourik's "City Hopper Marsch" by the Philharmonic Society of Corfu junior band




"Cine...Manos" by the Philharmonic Society of Corfu junior band



"The Mantzaros theme" by the Philharmonic Society "Mantzaros" junior band




"Come back to Sorrento" by the Philharmonic Society "Mantzaros" junior band

An adaption of Monty Pythons' "Bright Side of Life" shot in Corfu

  The song is the greek version of Monty Pythons "Bright Side of Life" by the band "Makrina Xadelfia". The video represents the song's lyrics in the greek sign language. It is a really good idea to shot a video of such a happy song in the sign language around Corfu Town. We would like to thank them for this iniciative. Enjoy!

 

Another music videoclip shot in Corfu: 2Carat feat. BigJay - Sinanay 2012

   Not my kind of music but I like this video just because it was shot in our favourite island, Corfu. The video seems to had been taped in a tourist resort and in some beaches which I can't recognize. The group comes from Germany and they sing in german.
  Can any german speaker translate the lyrics in english for us please?


 

Greek Sun Chasers feat. Ivan Baskakov - Falling Away

   This is a summer dance song composed by two good friends of mine. The video was filmed in Chania, Creta. Please share the video with your friends. 
The video's URL: http://youtu.be/CgF_ZKRAzi4

Α little concert with songs by the corfiot composer Giorgos Katsaros

   Yesterday the Philharmonic Society of Corfu performed four famous songs of the well-known corfiot composer Giorgos Katsaros.
    First song was "Kathe Limani Kai Kaimos".



Then, "Kithira"...



...and finally, "To Petinari" and "Kerkyra me to Pontikonissi" originally sung by the old corfiot actress Rena Vlachopoulou





All videos taken from CorfWeb1 channel in YouTube.

Philarmonic Society of Corfu yesterday's Easter concert

   Yesterday, the band which I'm a proud member of, gave a marvellous concert at the Municipal theatre performing pieces by Verdi, Purcell, John Williams and many more. There were three soloists: trumbetist Dimitris Agathos, clarinetist Aggelos Politis and percussionist Marios Mouzakitis. The last one played a segment from Ney Rosauro's "Concert for Timpani and Band" which was really impressive and unusual because most of people think that doesn't exist concerts for percussion.
  Below, there are three of the pieces performed, uploaded today by a user named lisistratos62 on YouTube. The first one is Purcell's "Concert for trumpet", the second is Hellmesberger "Devil Dance" (usually perfomed by the Vienna S.O.) and the last one is the segments from Rosauro's concert for timbani.







  It was a great night packed with melody, rhythm and styles from distinct eras proving that corfiot bands' artistic level is quite high.

This year's Philharmonic Society of Corfu marching show

   This year too, celebrating our indepedence day, the Philarmonic Society of Corfu presented a fabulous marching show at the cricket ground of Esplanade.
   The show started with the theme from "Rocky" and the "Commandery" march. Then, they played a greek march called "Taxiarchia" and the famous "Memories" melody from "Cats", originally sung by Barbara Streisand. The show ended with a selection of famous melodies, "Con te partiro", the "Colonel Boogie" march and "Rocky theme" once again.
   Here is the video covering the whole show, courtesy of Corfweb.



-Last year's show: http://johncorfuworld.blogspot.com/2011/03/philharmonic-society-of-corfu-marching.html

Bizet and Joplin at the theatre

   Tonight the Philharmonic Society of Corfy symphonic orchestra gave a wonderful concert. A diverse selection of music works were skillfully performed like the Rodion Shchedrin/Bizet "Carmen" suite and Gunther Schuller "Journey to Jazz". Four ragtimes, specifically arranged for symphonic orchestra were presented, including Scott Joplin's "The entertainer" theme heard in the famous 1973 american film "The Sting".
  Here are three short videos from tonight's concert. The first two are taken from the "Carmen" suite while the last one is "The entertainer" ragtime.

The german origin of the "Gastouriotikos" traditional dance

   Few corfiots know that the famous Gastouriotikos dance is not a corfiot one but its music had been composed by a berliner named Franz Meissner in 1892. This song became popular in Corfu by Kaiser Wilhelm II since 1908, when he was visiting Achilion palace in Gastouri village for his summer holidays. As he loved the song and he supported the local Philharmonic Band, he asked them to play it for him by giving them its music score. Because of the fact that its rhythm matches the corfiot dance steps, the locals adopted it originally renaming it "Gastouri Kaiser dance".
   Below you can hear the original as well as the greek version of this tune.

The original theme named "Im Grunewald ist Holzauktion"




The "Gastouriotikos" dance 

A 90s greek videoclip shot around Corfu Island

    Kostas Bigalis, a known greek singer who has a series of hits back in the 90s, had shot the video for his 1995 song "Varkáda" ("Boating ride") in various corfiot locations like old Corfu town, Kanoni and Kaiser's bridge near Benitses. 
   It is a nice happy summer song, back from the era when greek pop music was flourishing and unpretending. Here is the rare video:

A beautiful article about the Philharmonic Society of Corfu

   The Ionian magazine kindly published an article about the oldest philharmonic society in Greece in their January 2012 issue. I have contributed to the article by providing two photos and making some remarks about my experience as a member of this band. Also it features a brief history of the philharmonic and mention a passage from reknown british writer Lawrence Durrell's desciption of a typical corfiot religious procession in his "Prospero's cell" novel. 

Download the photo in your computer for better resolution (courtesy of the "Ιonian magazine")

- You can download the issue from  the magazine's site: http://www.theionian.com

Merry Christmas from John!

  I wish to all my readers Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2012 filled with peace and prosperity. I hope to see you all in our beautiful island next year!

Here are three videos from a christmas concert given by the Corfu conservatory's children choir and the brass ensemble in the catholic cathedral of San Giacomo. In the first one, the choir is singing the famous spanish carol "Feliz Navidad" while in the last two the brass ensemble is perfomorming "Christmas swing" and a selection of corfiot and other greek carols.

A concert in honour of our patron saint

  Today our island celebrates its patron saint, Saint Spyridon who has helped Corfu and many people in many occasions. In order to honour him, every year on December the 12th, the Philharmonic Society of Corfu is giving a concert in its own mini concert hall on Nikiforou Theotoki street. The hall is always full of people waiting for the concert to start.
  Below, there are three videos from today's concert.

Spiros Samaras "Flower dance" from "Flora Mirabilis"

  Yesterday the Philharmonic Society of Corfu gave a concert celebrating the 150th anniversary of Spiros Samaras birth. Samaras is one of the most important and acclaimed greek composers, mostly known for its operas. The band performed pieces of his era and style which was pretty close to that of Puccini and Leoncavallo.
  Here is a video in which the band is perfoming one of the most famous melodies composed by Samaras. It is the "Flower dance" from the "Flora Mirabilis" opera.

Bands playing marches after litany

  Here are two short videos taken from the festivies of "Protokyriako" (every first Sunday of November we celebrate one of S. Spyridon's miracles). Right after the litany's end, the Philharmonic Society of Corfu and the Philharmonic Society "Mantzaros" marched in the Liston square playing marches.

Abba's "Mamma Mia" performed by Philharmonic Society of Corfu junior band

Last month Philharmonic Society of Corfu junior band gave a concert at the square on the front of St. Spyridon church (colloquially known as "Plakada tou Agiou"). They played a selection of easy listening music which demonstrated that these young musicians have talent. Here is a video with the band performing the famous "Mamma Mia" song by Abba.

 
Copyright: CorfuWeb (Spyros Margaritis)

The Philharmonic Society of Corfu at the 11th of August celebrations

Here are two videos from the 11th of August celebrations in Corfu Town with the Philharmonic Society of Corfu performing the famous march from Tannhäuser and Alford's "Colonel Bogey" march..