Everyone encounters headwinds in life. With the Greek hero Odysseus, the cards are a little different. This mythical man thinks he can outsmart the gods. With disastrous consequences. The Greek-Dutch composer Calliope Tsoupaki based her latest musical drama Odysseus on a crucial moment during Odysseus’ famous world trip. The daring Odysseus is given a bag of headwinds to ensure that he never suffers any on the way. But the headwinds escape and develop into an uncontrollable storm.
Commissioned by the Asko|Schönberg ensemble, Dutch composer Tsoupaki has written a thrilling concert work about this drama of fate. Tsoupaki has developed her own, strongly lyrical musical language in which her Greek background and love of early music resound. Music full of sacred charge and tangible atmospheres. During November Music 2019 she was the central festival composer with the premiere of her Bosch Requiem Liknon. This evening of November Music is entirely dedicated to Calliope’s work. After the performance of Odysseus, the Jheronimus Bosch Art Center will host the premiere of her Byzantine requiem Memento Nostri, which will also feature a performance of Thin Air by violinist Claire Adams.
For Odysseus, Tsoupaki will collaborate with photographer and visual artist Awoiska van der Molen. With her poignant nature photos, she has garnered worldwide attention, including her travelling exhibition Hope. On Greek soil, Van der Molen has made a series of powerful nature photos, with which she underlines the inescapable drama of Ulysses’ story. During the performance, projection of photographic images intensifies the musical emotions. Odysseus thus develops into an exciting dialogue between movement, music and image, with which Tsoupaki and Van der Molen confront us with the consequences of human actions in the here and now.
Concert in Amsterdam
Concert in Den Bosch
Composers in the crosshairs of our attention