Southern Cross – Lines of the Horizons
A musical performance with poems by Nikos Kavvadias set to music

The beloved composer Thanos Mikroutsikos presents his complete work on the poet Nikos Kavaddias (Southern Cross and Lines of the Horizons) in a spellbinding concert at the Odeon of Herodes Atticus. We have Thanos Mikroutsikos to thank for making us familiar with Kavvadias’ poetry, as he set his poems to music. Mikroutsikos’ approach ensured that Kavvadias was seen as much more than just a poet writing about sailors and the sea, as he also explored themes such as freedom, subversion and the impulse of life beyond conventions. Mikroutsikos called attention to these themes in Kavvadias’ poetry and was proved right: Kavvadias’ poems have been loved by young people not only of Mikroutsikos’ generation but of subsequent generations as well.

Mikroutsikos’ first album on Kavvadias, Southern Cross, turns 40 years old this year (it was first released in 1979) and is rightly considered one of the greatest albums in the history of Greek music, having sold over two million copies. Giannis Koutras, Vassilis Papakonstantinou and Aimilia Sarri lent their vocals. Twelve years later, the album Lines of the Horizons (1991) vividly captured the composer’s profound connection with Kavvadias’ poetry. George Dalaras, Vassilis Papakonstantinou, Haris and Panos Katsimihas, and Mikroutsikos himself contributed vocals. In 2005, Live in Megaron, the third version of this collaboration, was released, with Yiannis Kotsiras, Lavrentis Machairitsas, Christos Thivaios and Giannis Koutras as vocalists. The format of this concert at the Athens Concert Hall (Megaron) required discipline, improvisation and virtuosity on the part of the musicians, and was the culmination of years of creativity from the compositions’ inception to the present.