The new season of the TSSO began ideally, with the three wonderful soloists, Maxim Vengerov (violin), Peter Somodari (cello) and Theodosia Dokou (piano) performing Beethoven's masterpiece 'Triple Concerto' in absolute harmony and excellent coordination between them, but also with the breathtaking solos of each one that thrilled the audience. The three soloists responded to the five-minute apotheosis with Piazzolla's wonderful, lyrical and melancholic 'Oblivion' from the film Enrico IV by Marco Bellocchio, while they repeated the concerto's finale due to the continued apotheosis by the ecstatic audience.
In the second part, the TSSO, conducted by Michalis Economou, performed Shostakovich's 'Symphony No.10 in E minor, Op. 93
', offering a wonderful emotional journey to the audience and thus completing an unforgettable musical evening that combined excellent music with timeless universal messages, with works by composers who expressed the deepest humanistic ideals and resisted all kinds of oppression and authoritarianism, praising the freedom and brotherhood of people.
As conductor Michalis Economou noted, among other things, in his brief address at the start of the second half: "Ladies and gentlemen, I feel compelled to welcome you to the new artistic season of the city’s cultural jewel: the Thessaloniki State Symphony Orchestra. Shostakovich is the composer who, more than any other in human history, embodies human ideals and values. He is the composer with whom every musician who performs his work identifies. Shostakovich wielded his pen as a weapon against the realities of our daily lives—wars, crises, oppression, inequality, injustice, and all the factors we witness around us every day. Shostakovich was an artist striving to make his voice heard at a time—the mid-20th century—when the musical worlds of Europe and America were battling against tonality and pushing for experimentation; yet, he handled tonality in his own unique way and succeeded, like no other, in becoming synonymous with the struggle for a better life."