Cosmographies. Mediterranean Desert, Giorgos Koumendakis

Concert – performance

22 October 2012

Hall des Chars,
10 rue du Howald F-67000 Strasbourg

Within the framework of Cosmographies / e.city – Rethymno

koumendakis
Giorgos KOUMENDAKIS Mediterranean Desert

piano: Alexandra Papastefanou, Lorenda Ramou and Giorgos Konstandinou
video installation & performance: Petros Touloudis
soundscapes: Tim Ward

A work for solo piano, it consists of 24 pieces which draw on the flora and fauna of the Mediterranean for their content.
We have all felt the power of the Mediterranean landscape to some extent; a landscape which is distorted day by day through the thoughtless treatment by its inhabitants.
The contemporary man’s relationship with the natural landscape—at times charged, imbalanced or nonexistent—was the starting point for this composition.
Music heeds no tourist guides. It becomes itself the medium for the reveries of the soul. It reconstructs the memories of summer and turns into a comforting guide for winter. Every time we open our window, the Mediterranean sea is always there.
Each of the 24 pieces starts off as musical commentary on the particular physical traits of fish, birds, animals, insects and plants. The grouper, the rainbow wrasse, the cormorant, the black vulture, the dragonfly, the moth, the spearmint and the sage gradually begin to reveal the traits of their soul. In the agile movements of the garfish I tried to musically chart its psychological peculiarities.

Mediterranean Desert was commissioned by the Michael Marks Charitable Trust.
G.K.

1998-2000, extracts35′