«Music for the Museum»

In May 2020, the Thessaloniki State Orchestra and MOMus collaborated on the basis of the music-art partnership. Composers and Musicians of the TSSO were inspired by the venues, the collections and the exhibitions of the MOMus-Museum of Contemporary Art, and then created and presented four new, original musical works, under the general title "Music for the Museum".

Inspiration was reborn, works of art became the starting point for large-scale experiences and emotions, form and color were reflected in the composition and the musical performance.

Two out of the four episodes-short films that were finally produced, were inspired by works of art with main themes the ecological disaster, urban dystopia, intolerance and racism, all elements so modern and current in a tragic way.

The sculptures of the Greek sculptor Achilleas Apergis (1909-1986), donated by his son, musician, George Apergis to the Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art, oxidized metals and peaks indicating post-catastrophic landscapes, were transformed into upgrade, intensity and sharpness in the music work entitled "Rebirth", composed by Dimitra Trypanis, flute by Ioannis Anisegos. The camera passes slowly in front of the sculptures, which like other small trees or buildings, look abandoned, damaged, without a trace of life, or a trace of a human imprint. The landscape is dystopian, while the music follows the eye, and vice versa.

The transition to the third episode entitled "Beyond the violence” in inspired by the exhibition "X them out", which depicts episodes of racist violence by Greek and foreign cartoonists. The periodical exhibition at the MOMus-Museum of Contemporary Art initiated by HumanRights360 and the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation presents the designs that emerged on the occasion of 100 attacks by the Golden Dawn followers throughout Greece and highlights the criminal practices of the Nazi organisation. The music composed by Menelaos Peistikos and performed by Marilena Liakopoulou on the piano captured the cries, the violence, the fear of the depicted human beings.

These episodes are a proposal of the Network of Museums of Contemporary Culture and are supported by the Ministry of Culture and Sports in the context of the priorities set by the Greek Presidency of the Council of Europe for human rights and climate change.