As part of the commemorative events “1974 & 1944: Athens Celebrates Freedom,” the City of Athens honors the 50th anniversary of the restoration of Democracy with a major concert at the City of Athens Lycabettus Theatre on Tuesday, October 15, titled “Nothing Goes to Waste: 50 Years of Songs for a Better World,” featuring distinguished representatives of three generations of performers.
Organized by the Technopolis City of Athens and under the artistic direction of lyricist, columnist, author, and radio producer Odysseas Ioannou, the concert focuses on the socio-political songs written from 1974 onwards, creating a musical tribute to the Metapolitefsi and the songs that served as a unifying link in the struggle for a better and fairer life.
The Metapolitefsi marked the liberation of an expression that had been silent and persecuted for years. Great composers, lyricists, and poets enriched the precious history of Greek song with songs that attempted to envision a new world and shelter the hope born after a particularly turbulent period. New words or older ones, from poetry collections of previous years, merged with great, free melodies, creating songs that were interpreted by ‘national’ voices.
On Tuesday, October 15, Spyros Grammenos, Foivos Delivorias, Manolis Mitsias, George Dalaras, Maria Papageorgiou, Vassilis Papakonstantinou, Miltos Paschalidis, and Maria Farantouri will take us on a journey through beloved songs that marked the era of the Metapolitefsi and contributed to shaping our cultural identity. These songs, over these five decades of democracy, spoke of anxieties, expressed the longing for a better world, and managed to unite us around common dreams.