Thank You Everyone 2023

The 7th “International Kalamata Music Days” Festival was highly successful and we feel the urge to thank from the bottom of our hearts the Municipality of Kalamata and FARIS – Kalamata Municipality Beneficiary Organization, the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and the Peloponnese Region, our Grand Sponsor: the George & Victoria Karelia Foundation, the Kalamata Friends of Music Association, the Captain Vassilis and Carmen Constantakopoulos Foundation, the Association “TERPSIS”, our media sponsors and the supporters of the festival, as with their contribution we have once again brought to fruition a successful and artistically significant festival.

We thank our partners: Ephorate of Antiquities of Messenia, Filmhouse – New Film Club of Kalamata and Foundation Kaloy of Corinth in collaboration with the Athens Concert Hall, the Third Programme public radio, and the association DIAZOMA.

And of course, we would like to thank all the invited artists who honoured us with their presence:

Ypapanti Alexandropoulou (percussion, Greece), Fanie Antonelou (soprano, Germany/Greece), Petra Arman (flute, Germany/Italy), Nikolaos Beis (violin, Greece), İdil Bursa (violoncello, Germany/Turkey), Angie Casdas (violin, Greece), Verena Chen (violin, Germany), Felix Froschhammer (violin, Switzerland/Germany), Angeliki Giannopoulou (piano, Netherlands/Greece), Arionas Gyftakis (double bass & composition, Greece), Pablo Hernán Benedí (violin & viola, Switzerland/Spain), Panos Iliopoulos (spinet, Greece), Katalin Kertész (violin, Greece/Hungary), Dimitris Kountouras (recorder, Greece), Dante Lind (viola, Netherlands/Sweden), Andreas Linos (viola da gamba, France/Greece), Natasha López (soprano, Germany/Spain), Popi Malapani (piano, Greece), Katerina Miliaresi (percussion, Greece), Gabriele Milozzi (saxophone, Greece/Italy), Erdem Misirlioglou (piano, UK), Alexia Mouza (piano, Greece), Lidiia Nochovska (piano, Ukraine), Vasilis Papapanagiotou (viola, Greece), Maria Papapetropoulou (piano, Greece), Giorgos Pavlakos (recorder, Greece), Edvard Pogossian (violoncello, USA), Maria Rahmatulla (violin, Switzerland/Turkey), Hugo Rannou (violoncello, Germany/France), Tilman Sandvoss (viola, Canada), Ilias Sdoukos (viola, Greece), Charlotte Spruit (violin, Netherlands), Giorgos Thomopoulos (trumpet, Greece), Dimitris Tigkas (violone, Greece), Georgia Tsolaki (violin, Greece), Stavros Tsotras (bassoon, Greece), Tryfonas Typou (piano, Greece), Romana Uhlíková (double bass, Switzerland/Slovakia), Fani Vovoni (violin, Greece) and Joshua Weilerstein (conducting, UK/USA).

We also thank the 26 students who attended the masterclasses: violin, viola and chamber music by Pablo Hernán Benedí, violin by Felix Froschhammer, viola by Ilias Sdoukos, violoncello by Indira Rahmatulla, piano by Alexia Mouza and orchestra conducting by Joshua Weilerstein. The students came from Canada, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Greece, Guatemala, the Netherlands, Nicaragua, Nicaragua and USA.

Many thanks to our co-workers in the production team, who helped us to organize an exemplary festival (Alexandra Theogianni, Vasiliki Kastora, Konstantina Malapani, Akis Sipsas and Giorgos Tsilikas), our communication managers (Maria Avgea and Katerina Voulgari), our graphic designers (Lavrentis Choraitis and Panagiotis Psichogios), our tireless sound engineers (Alex Beck and Lennart Pieper), our imaginative photographer (Stelios Papardelas), our cameramen (Antonis Katrakazis and Ilias Efthichiakos), the head of the FARIS accounting department (Nikos Fiskilis), as well as the entire FARIS accounting department (Stavros Nathaniel, Maria Tsifilitakou, Akis Marinos, Kyriakos Fiskilis and Eleni Markopoulou) and of course our amazing, willing, inventive, tireless and smiling volunteers: Eva Diskou, Nikoletta Sarella, Akrivi Bakourou, Athanasios Karatzas, Erikketi Panagiotopoulou, Apostolos Karageorgis, Katerina Chrysanthakopoulou, Maria Markova, Katerina Paleologou and Irina Holiastou.

Finally, we thank our audience, who honoured us with their presence and their enthusiastic words!

See you again at the 8th festival, which we already started organizing!

The founding team of the festival

Indira Rahmatulla

Dimitrios Lampos

Stathis Gftakis

from left to right: Dimitrios Lampos, Stathis Giftakis and Indira Rahmatulla / photo: Stylianos Papardelas