Subset Festival

New music festival

10-14 June

Curated by Stavros Gasparatos

In co-production with the the Athens Conservatoire

The Subset Festival, the multifaceted music platform launched last year, held by the Athens Epidaurus Festival in co-production with the Athens Conservatoire, returns refreshed but always with a focus on the dialogue between contemporary music and new media.

Named after a mathematical term (subset ⊆), the Subset Festival together diverse versions of contemporary musical creation, incorporating a wide variety of artistic trends. From 10 to 14 June, the renovated Conservatoire venues will host musical ensembles and soloists, established and up-and-coming alike, both from Greece and around the world, visual and sound installations and performances, as well as open call workshops.

The Subset Festival includes commissions to contemporary Greek ensembles and artists (Andys Skordis, Nefeli Stamatogiannopoulou, Evi Nakou, Vassoula Delli, George Kokkinaris, Thanos Polymeneas, MIZI, Alexandros Drymonitis, Magda Lampropoulou, Dimitra Kousteridou, Giorgos Poulios) who create seven new works-installations especially for the Festival. Other participants comprise renowned contemporary music ensembles and artists from Greece (Jannis Anastasakis and Natalia Manda) and abroad (Arve Henriksen, Raed Yassin, Laurel Halo, Klara Lewis, Nik Colk Void, Pedro Maia, Ben Frost, as well as Solistensemble Kaleidoskop for the world premiere of Maya Dunietz’s new work). The highlight of the Festival –which is becoming a valuable locus of artistic dialogue for the international music community– will be the screening of Ryuichi Sakamoto: Opus directed by the Japanese-American filmmaker Neo Sora who recorded the final solo piano performance of its namesake composer and musician prior to his death.

PROGRAMME

10 June 2024

Amphitheatre | 20:30

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Klara Lewis & Nik Colk Void

Live visuals Pedro Maia

Klara Lewis and Nik Colk Void meet in a playful collage of Pop and Noise with guitars, synths, Eurorack modular systems, voice, sampling, and outboard processing intertwining their own distinct versions of tender techno and brutal ambient.

ARVE HENRIKSEN & JANNIS ANASTASAKIS

Live visuals NATALIA MANTA

The acclaimed Norwegian trumpeter and composer Arve Henriksen (trumpet, vocals, electronics) meets the innovative performer Jannis Anastasakis (electric guitar, analogue synthesizer, musical saw, live-electronics).

New Stage | 22:00

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RAED YASSIN

Phantom Orchestra

The Phantom Orchestra by the Lebanese artist Raed Yassin, distinguished in both visual arts and music, is a collective project that captures and archives a special musical moment in recent history: the solitarily developed sounds of experimental improvisers in isolation due to the not long past pandemic restrictions.

11 June 2024

Amphitheatre | 20:30

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ANDYS SKORDIS

«β»

«β», a commission by Subset to Cypriot contemporary music composer Andys Skordis, is a multidisciplinary performance by four musicians, a conductor, electronics, and a VJ in live creation.

In the live video performance, the composer collaborates with Elia Kalogianni who creates the work’s visual context.

• New Stage | 22:00

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ΟV OFF ENSEMBLE – NEFELI STAMATOGIANNOPOULOU

άϊζο/ Iso, the bird II

Revisiting earlier work, the composer Nefeli Stamatogiannopoulou presents, especially for Subset, άϊζο/Iso, the bird. II, a music experiment that is written for eight speakers, recorded material, visuals, flute, birbynė, percussion, rhodes piano, vocals, double bass and a conductor.
Each musician/performer worked indepently on their parts as solo and these solos converged on stage.
In this music and stage composition, starring Iso, a bird that lived in a cage, the artist, focuses on a personal system of notation and creation, takes the relationship between sound composition, movement, and dramaturgy of sound further to a singularly atmospheric and cinematic approach.

GIORGOS POULIOS

trespassing

Giorgos Poulios has written music for dozens of theatrical and dance theatre performances, while his musical oeuvre is presented in concerts, theatres, and festivals around the globe since 2004. Inspired by his collaborations in both Theatre and Dance, the self-taught composer and musician showcases a solo concert-performance as part of the Subset Festival’s programme.

12 June 2024

Amphitheatre | 20:30

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SOLISTENENSEMBLE KALEIDOSKOP & MAYA DUNIETZ

Sound οf Difference

Founded in 2006 in Berlin, Solistenensemble Kaleidoskop has since been dedicated to developing new forms of experimental music theatre. With an open mindset, the ensemble creates new formats of collaboration with international artists from other music genres and scenes.

They will be performing composer Maya Dunietz’s work which brings to the fore a throbbing musical universe where ghost notes make their appearance. Slow gestures. Long structures. Waves of pitches sliding up and down in a constant dance and an infinite search for equilibrium.

• New Stage| 22:00

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ALEXANDROS DRYMONITIS feat. ARTEFACTS ENSEMBLE

Techno unplugged

A performance of live acoustic techno, code, and artificial intelligence. Programmer Alexandros Drymonitis writes live music scores through code writing and invites the ARTéfacts ensemble musicians to play techno with acoustic instruments!

13 June 2024

Amphitheatre | 20:30

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EVI NAKOU & VASSULA DELLI

We habitually maintain

We habitually maintain is a work about the automated ways that link architecture, sound, and the labour of maintenance in basement spaces and the human bodies. Field recordings of machinery, live and processed sound, and non-verbal sounds produce a score performed by musicians Evi Nakou and Vassula Delli: a sonic and textual composition about the unseen and unheard machine and human labour that ‘maintain’ us so that we keep on going about our lives.

LAUREL HALO

WITH LEILA BORDREUIL

Atlas

American composer and pianist Laurel Halo is based in Los Angeles. Her first album Quarantine, released on Hyperdub in 2012, was announced album of the year by ‘The Wire’. At the Subset Festival, alongside Leila Bordreuil on cello, she will be performing Atlas, her new album with which she has been touring the world’s biggest festivals and concert halls since late 2023.

• New Stage|22:00

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MAGDA LAMPROPOULOU – DIMITRA KOUSTERIDOU

Twist

Twist is a performance that combines the analogue sound of sculptural constructions by Magda Lampropoulou with DIY electronic circuits and live-electronics techniques by Dimitra Kousteridou. Small manual and mechanical sculptures-constructions of objects and shapes with a feminine accent are twisting and turning in a synchronised dance. Light exercises in balancing between the fragile nature of materials, such as glass, ceramics, paper, fabric, and the tenuous dynamics of their sounds.

MIZI – KOKKINARIS – POLYMENEAS

ΜΑΖΑ

George Kokkinaris, MIZI, and Thanos Polymeneas present MAZA. A specially designed and curated sonic experience for Subset and the New Stage at the Athens Conservatoire. The concert venue will be immersed in a dense sonic atmosphere featuring two amplified double basses, a custom feedback double bass, a digital system of 256 pure tones, and a halldorophone, all diffused through an 8-channel speaker arrangement.

The strong amplification of the acoustic instruments will provide a hyperrealistic sonic experience, allowing the listener to hear every single microsound produced by the strings, fretboard, bow, and body of the instrument.

14 June 2023

Amphitheatre | 20:30

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Ryuichi Sakamoto: Opus by Neo Sora

FILM SCREENING

On the last day of this year’s edition, the Subset Festival honours the great Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto, who passed away a year ago, by screening Ryuichi Sakamoto: Opus directed by the Japanese-American filmmaker Neo Sora. Sakamoto mustered all of his energy to leave the world with one final performance: a concert film, featuring just him and his piano. Curated by Sakamoto himself and presented in his chosen order, the twenty pieces performed in the film wordlessly narrate his life through his music.

• Arts Lounge  22:30

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BEN FROST feat. GREG KUBACKI & TARIK BARRI

Ben Frost is a musician and composer whose renowned work traverses minimal, experimental, industrial, and noise. Frost has continuously pushed the sonic limits in his live performances, studio albums, and prolific soundtrack work. After working with lauded artists such as Björk, Tim Hecker, Colin Stetson, and Swans, Frost brings to the Subset Festival a new collaboration with Greg Kubacki –guitarist of mathcore band Car Bomb– and Dutch audiovisual artist Tarik Barri.

• Arts Lounge | 23:30

CLOSING PARTY