The Harlot Came to Thee

Lead Donor of the musicAeterna Byzantina

The mystical hymns of Holy Tuesday, melodically inspired primarily by George Raidestinos II (Archon Archcantor of the Great Church of Christ, †1989) and hymnographically by the preeminent hymn-writer of Holy Week, the nun Kassiani (the woman who had fallen into many sins). The choir musicAeterna Byzantina will exclusively perform all the hymns of Holy Tuesday, which is unusual and perhaps unprecedented for Easter concerts, where we are used to hearing the most well-known hymns of Holy Week.

BRIEF BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

Antonios Koutroupis choirmaster
Musician, lyrical singer, conductor and musicologist. He began his studies at the School of Byzantine Music in Cyprus, where he is originally from. He then attended the St. Petersburg State Conservatory, where he took courses in orchestral conducting and music theory and obtained a diploma in monody. He completed his studies in Italy, where he also worked as a lambadarios at St. George's Cathedral in Venice, whilst giving recitals in Italy, Cyprus and Russia. In 2012, he was invited to the Orthodox Music Festival in St. Petersburg as a professor and performer of Byzantine music. In 2018, he began collaborating with Teodor Currentzis and took over the direction of the Byzantine choir musicAeterna Byzantina, leading its impressive debut at the Diaghilev Festival (Perm, Russia, 2019). Since then, he has performed at prestigious venues such as the St. Petersburg Philharmonia Hall, Saint Isaac's Cathedral (St. Petersburg), Grand Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, Théâtre du Châtelet and Sainte-Chapelle (Paris), Baden-Baden Festival, Athens Concert Hall, Vienna Festival and the Salzburg Festival

Ribale Wehbe soloist
Lebanese singer and chanter. At the age of eight, she participated in a Byzantine music concert with the SEM choir, where she remains an active soloist. Since then, she has given numerous performances interpreting Byzantine and oriental music. In 2019, she made her international debut at the Brașov Festival (Romania), under whose auspices her first album O My Soul, was released. In 2020, she moved to Greece, where she continued her music studies. A year later, she gave concerts in various countries. In 2021, she was distinguished as a soloist at the Diaghilev Festival in Perm (Russia) and at the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Salzburg Festival, under the direction of Teodor Currentzis. In 2022, she performed with the musical ensemble musicAeterna in St. Petersburg, Moscow and Yerevan. She is also a soloist with musicAeterna Byzantina choir, under the direction of conductor Antonios Koutroupis. She holds a degree in musicology (Antonine University, Lebanon, 2020) and a diploma in Byzantine music (Holy Archdiocese of Athens, 2021), while playing the piano and oud.

Grigorios Zarkos soloist
He was born in Ellinochori, Corinthia. After graduating from the Orthodox High School of Corinth, he attended the Theological School of Athens, where he received a degree in Theology with highest honors. He holds diplomas in Byzantine music teaching (National Conservatory of Athens) and monody (Erateio Conservatory of Vrilissia). He has participated in numerous choral events in Greece and abroad and has chanted alongside renowned lead chanters, including the internationally acclaimed head chanter Mr. Theodoros Vassilikos, with whom he performed the Great Symphony of Byzantine Music in Athens. He has also been invited to several important religious music events abroad (Moscow, Salzburg, Yerevan) and regularly collaborates as a soloist with the musicAeterna musical ensemble, under the direction of Teodor Currentzis. He is the head chanter of the Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity in Piraeus. He was honored by His Eminence Metropolitan Seraphim of Piraeus and Faliro with the offikion and was named First Chanter of the Metropolis of Piraeus.

Elizaveta Moroz director
Russian director, she was awarded the 3rd prize in the "Nano – Opera" competition. She is the curator of musicAeterna ‘’Atheatron’’ theatre programme and was previously the curator of the Stage director’s laboratory (Diaghilev, 2024). She taught at the I. Abdrazakov Summer School (St. Petersburg). She has worked as a director at the Moscow Academic Music Theatre (production department) and the Bolshoi Theatre (2015–2023). Recent engagements include Night at the Museum (Krasnoyarsk Opera and Ballet Theatre, longlist for the "Golden Mask" award), The Death of Ophelia (Bolshoi Theatre, "Cantatas. Myth" project), SPORIN'YA, Moira FM (Perm, Diaghilev Festival), Happy Days (‘’One Sixth’’ Film Festival, Yekaterinburg), Carmen, Così fan tutte (Nizhny Novgorod Opera and Ballet Theatre), Il trionfo del tempo e del disinganno (a joint production of the Nizhny Novgorod Opera and Ballet Theatre together with the Diaghilev Festival) and a Dedication to I. Goll (Dom Radio). She also directed the Bolshaya Opera project for the Kultura TV channel. She is a graduate from the Russian Institute of Theatre Arts, specializing in stage directing.

Yiorgos Kaloudis classical Cretan lyra

Yiorgos Kaloudis was born in Athens and has family roots in both Crete and Corfu. As a musician and researcher, he has presented his works in international concert halls, festivals, archaeological sites and churches around the world. His discography includes the albums: La Rêveuse: The Classical Cretan Lyra in Early Music, J.S. Bach: Cello Suites on Cretan Lyra, Truth, On The Wind, Aptera, and Driopi. Since 2023, he has collaborated with Teodor Currentzis, participating in musicAeterna, Dom Radio in Saint Petersburg, and the UTOPIA orchestra. Since 2020, he has been working with the organization ARTience by_PhonoQuest on educational and artistic projects. Since 2014, he has been teaching cello, chamber music and his method, Mindful Musical Practice. His work has been presented in Greece, Cyprus, Russia, Austria, Norway, England, France, Germany, Latvia, Belgium, Kazakhstan, Japan, Turkey, the United States and Canada.

Marinos Tranoudakis gran cassa

Since April 2017, he has been a Principal Timpanist of the GNO Orchestra. He has collaborated with renowned conductors, including, among others, Kurt Masur, Daniel Harding, Teodor Currentzis, and with orchestras such as musicAeterna, Nord West Deutsche Philharmonie, Bielefelder Philharmoniker, Radio Kammerphilarmonie Netherlands, Detmolder Kammerorchester. He has collaborated with all Greek orchestras. He has been assistant professor at the Hochschule für Musik Detmold where he is still giving masterclasses as a guest. He has recorded for Sony Classics, WDR3 and BR3 radios. From 2014 until 2017 he held the co-principal percussion and timpani position in the Symphony Orchestra of the Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation. He studied in Greece under Konstantinos Vorissis and Konstantinos Theodorakos, and in Germany at the Hochschulen für Musik in Detmold and Würzburg under Peter Prommel, Nancy Zeltsman, Fumito Nunoya, Sven Pollkötter, and Mark Lutz and Robert Cürlis respectively. At the same time he studied timpani privately under the Berlin Philharmonic timpanist Wieland Welzel and the Bochumer Symphoniker timpanist Arend Weitzel.

Amalia Moutousi narrator

She graduated from the Greek Art Theatre "Karolos Koun" Drama School in Athens and continued her studies at the HB and William Esper Studios in New York. Along with director Michael Marmarinos and composer Dimitris Kamarotos, she has been a member of an experimental theatre group in Athens for twenty years. Similarly, she worked closely for years with the director and actor Lefteris Vogiatzis. She performed in Euripides' Hippolytus and Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound in cooperation with the composer Dimitris Kamarotos. She has performed principal roles in numerous plays such as Libation Bearers, Agamemnon, The Persians (Aeschylus), Antigone, Electra, Oedipus Rex (Sophocles), Medea, Hippolytus, Iphigenia in Tauris (Euripides), Hamlet (William Shakespeare), The Break of Noon (Paul Claudel), The Cherry Orchard (Anton Chekhov), Cleansed (Sarah Kane), A Doll's House (Henryk Ibsen), The Seven Deadly Sins (Kurt Weill / Bertolt Brecht), Amphitryon (Molière), Bérénice (Jean Racine). She has worked with a great number of influential international directors such as Jossi Wieler, Dimiter Gotscheff, Yorgos Lanthimos, Yannis Kokkos, and the choreographer Kim Brandstrup. She has taught acting since 1990.

musicAeterna Byzantina
The musicAeterna Byzantina, founded and artistically directed by Teodor Currentzis, consists of eighteen Byzantine music graduates (Greeks and Cypriots). In its rehearsals, the choir focuses on refining its timbre, achieving rhythmic and interpretative precision, developing vocal technique, enhancing breath control through endurance exercises, and studying ancient melodies based on the Byzantine musical tradition. To date, it has performed at the Diaghilev Festival (Perm), Philharmonia, and St. Isaac's Cathedral (St. Petersburg), Dom Radio, Grand Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, Catholic Cathedral of Moscow, Théâtre du Châtelet and Sainte-Chapelle (Paris), Vienna, Yerevan in Armenia, Baden-Baden Festival, and at the Athens Concert Hall. In July 2022, it took part in the prestigious Salzburg Festival, and more recently, it has performed at the Bologna Festival, in Patmos and in Amorgos.