Alexandra Papastefanou in recital

The Sacred Music Days concert cycle and the GNO Alternative Stage Piano Festival return with a single programme of sacred music works for solo piano. From 7 to 10 April 2022, four singular piano recitals will be given by distinguished soloists on the GNO Alternative Stage at the SNFCC in collaboration with the Thessaloniki Piano Festival and curated by Charalambos Angelopoulos.

Alexandra Papastefanou (7/4), Danae Kara (8/4), Vassilis Varvaresos (9/4) and Giorgos Fragos (10/4), all of them acclaimed artists with a remarkable career in Greece and abroad, perform popular but also lesser-known piano works by a wide range of composers, from Bach, Chopin and Liszt to Bartók, Messiaen and Theodorakis, bringing to the fore the diverse shades of religious solemnity and the two-way relationship between creative drive and religious sentiment.

Alexandra Papastefanou’s recital

7 April 2022  • Starts at: 20.30

Works by Bach/Papastefanou, Ravel, Bartók, Jolivet

Singing of loss. Death, as well as the fear of death and its redeeming dimension, are major factors in the shaping of faith in different religions.

In Alexandra Papastefanou’s recital ritual dances of loss and dirges converse with Bach’s Cantatas transcribed for solo piano by the soloist herself. Bartók’s Four Dirges opt for an inward-focused treatment of death with sporadic dynamic outbursts of emotional discharge. On the contrary, in French composer Jolivet’s “Danses rituelles” the mournful atmosphere derives from ritualistic repetitiveness – with cultural references to Africa – and results in an inevitable scream of despair. Ravel’s stylised Pavane offers one of the most moving and characteristically melodious musical renditions of the most painful loss of all: the loss of a child.  

Alexandra Papastefanou

She studied at the Athens Conservatoire, the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory, at Franz Liszt Academy of Music, Budapest, and the Indiana University Bloomington, under Aliki Vatikioti, Peter Solymos, György Sebők and Alfred Brendel. She was a finalist at the Toronto Bach Festival and Clara Haskil Competition, while she received the Liebstoeckl and Fazioli Prizes at the International Geneva Competition. She took up music theory and composition, with G. A. Papaioannou, and Frederic Fox. She has performed the complete works of J. S. Bach and Robert Schumann. She recorded Dimitris Mitropoulos’ Greek Sonata and the complete piano works of G. A. Papaioannou, as well as works by Giorgos Koumendakis, Periklis Koukos, Yorgo Sicilianos, Vangelis Katsoulis, etc. She was awarded the Spyros Motsenigos Prize by the Academy of Athens. She has recorded Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, French Suites, Fantasias and Goldberg Variations, as well as works by Schumann. She received the Best Recording of 2018 award by the Union of Greek Critics for Drama and Music.

The GNO Alternative Stage’s strand of programming titled “SACRED MUSIC DAYS” falls under the Act “FESTIVAL EVENTS OF THE GNO ALTERNATIVE STAGE” (MIS 5004053), code 2017ΕΠΑ08510107 (Axis 06 of the “ATTICA” O.P.), and is co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and National Funds.