The 7 boys playing saxophones – By V. P. Karagiannis

In the film “The Conversation” Gene Hackman, a cruel professional eavesdropper and prankster, at the end of this Francis Ford Coppola thriller, falls victim to his “art” in the networks and their nets. They put a bed bug in his house, which is unheard of for the unscrupulous, who scours his whole house to find him. In the ruins at the end, sitting with his saxophone, he plays a heartbreaking piece about the end, the loss, the denial.

I was thinking about this film and its ending, as a viewer and listener of a concert (Saturday, April 13) by an ensemble of saxophone students and teachers at the Drizei Municipal Conservatory of Kozani.

The mansion in question is now a Municipal conservatory after so many public uses. It has hosted kings, prime ministers, ministers, party leaders in its long history and roles. The owner K. Drizis, a member of parliament in the Ottoman Parliament of Kon/polis, a great Venizelos factor of Kozani in the interwar period, erected a statue of Venizelos in the courtyard of the mansion while the politician was still alive. In a change of government

of the so frequent at that time, his opponents in the city tore down the statue, cut off his head with hammers and weights, and, kicking it like a soccer ball, carried it into the pit below. This one started from Skr’ka (Slavic rocky outcrop) and spread to the Lunes receiving area of ​​urban sewage of the city). There he was in charge of the eponymous Zlap ap’ Tslunes, which I don’t know by its texture but by its touch. Hard times. Then, after the failed movement of the Venizelics in 1935, the skinning union of Patras sent a telegram to the People’s Government in which they put their services at the disposal of the Governors to …scratch the movements.

Today the courtyard of the Conservatory is filled with white marble columns in a symbolism of the cross.

Big prologue somewhat strange with its history for an evening there that filled you with musical knowledge, tendencies to escape from the slag of everyday life, beauty and optimism. Concert with saxophones and entitled “From the Middle Ages to the Barogue” and was under the supervision and teaching of Mrs. Anastasia Karagounis (and a lawyer among other things, my neighbor in X. Mouka 1 very dear). Natasha Kyrgia edited the texts and Nikoleta Thanasoula designed the presentation. On the instruments: Nikos Nanos, Emmanuel Tsengenes, Thanasis Karamarkos, Anastasia Kousa, Lazaros Askaridis, Fotis Ioannidis. The musical anthology-program consisted of short pieces by classical composers starting from 1547 and ending in 1759; it included saxophone transcriptions of their works. I knew very few names, the absolute basics for an average musical knowledge: Pergolese, Purcell, Vivaldi, Bach, Telemann, Handel especially in the Hallelujan (Hallelujah) from the “Messiah” which was applauded. When the “Messiah” was performed for the first time on April 13, 1742 in Dublin, if I remember correctly, our exciting theologian at the Valtadorio Gymnasium, with its tragic ending, the gloomy Mich. Efthymiou, that after the “Hallelujah” the listeners stood up for half an hour.

The band consisted of 7 young saxophonists, some barely taller than their instrument. All with professional seriousness entered and exited the level stage and their lecterns to tuck into their papers and pieces and spread at least tenderness in the atmosphere. I knew the saxophone in other sound ways, not in classical arrangements, and I liked the new world of music where I was introduced, in principle, by girls playing the saxophone. I have always admired the language of music on paper and those who play by spelling and almost touching the written musical sounds.

It’s been a long time since I’ve been in small sensitive spaces (I exclude and highlight the “30 tiles” by P. Dimopoulos) where art and letters flourish quietly without any immoderation and not the thematic cheapness and the “dust” of the creators. In the large halls, the crowd tightens the mood and dismantles the soul. First of all, you can’t mess around in there, you leave it to the little ones, as I “suffered” that Saturday afternoon, April 13th at the very nice Kozani Conservatory. My eyes and glances constantly left outside the window, the music pushed them towards some clouds which were reddened by the evening light.

It was a completely nice evening given to us by the little musicians and their teacher…

PS I was leaving, when I was approached by two very sweet young ladies. “I admire you” one said to me “because you are a poet”. I was surprised to lose them as if I had been caught red-handed or a fruit thief. “But I’m not, at most, a pager or a rhymer” I chirped. They went to the Music High School of Ptolemaidos (where there is a great work in music under the direction of the famous Pavlos Tachtivernidis or something like that) and the music director of the school, commander of the “30 chairs” and not only that, set 4 of my poems to music entitled “Customs” which seem to have been sung in their large choir by the young women with whom I did not fail to take a photo of course.

I left relieved…