The "Oleg Danovski " Opera and Ballet National Theater celebrated on the evening of 21st October, the great American music composer of Greek descent Dinos Constantinides, via a special symphonic concert, under the lead of Maestro Radu Ciorei. The concert, entitled "Medalion Dinos Constantinides ", brought together a series of plays with different instrumental formulas, able to craft a complex musical portrait. These plays are from different creational periods: Gathering of Friends " (Divertimento for String Orchestra), Midnight Fantasy for Orchestra", Diakos Suite for Orchestra and Symphony No. 1.
"A Gathering of Friends " (Divertimento for String Orchestra) was written in 1994 and is based on an older play for guitar and strings. It comprises five moves, dedicated to some of the greatest baroques music composers: Johann Sebastian Bach, Henry Purcell, Antonio Vivaldi, Arcangelo Corelli, Georg Friedrich Handel and George Phillip Telemann. It contains subtle references to each and every one of these personalities, as small areas from the play are filled with notes of their specific creations, easily recognizable by any person with a decent level of knowledge in the history of music.
The second play of the program, "Midnight Fantasy for Orchestra ", was created in 1989, being the first to be presented in the first audition in China, in 1990, with the Shenzen Symphony Orchestra. Afterward, it was recorded by Vienna Modern Masters, entitled as "Music of the Six Continents ", with Radio Orchestra and Krakow Symphonic Orchestra. This play includes more melodious tones with sudden crescendo beats that signifies a violent awakening from a heavenly dream-like state into the real world. A true testimony of Constantinides' creative mind. Written in 1961, the "Diakos Suite " for orchestra springs from a deep layer of the composer's memory, being a musical landscape of Greece from another time, conserving the musical, rhythmical and spiritual status-quo of rural Greece.
