The Oxford Philharmonic marked the centenary of Mikis Theodorakis, the composer imprisoned for his music under Greece's dictatorship, with a new work and songs sung by Alkistis Protopsalti.
Cadogan Hall marked the centenary of Mikis Theodorakis on Tuesday 14 October 2025, with the Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by its founder, Marios Papadopoulos.
Theodorakis was born on the island of Chios in 1925 and studied at the Athens Conservatoire before the Greek Civil War caught up with him: arrested, exiled to Icaria and then sent to the prison island of Makronisos, he was tortured and twice buried alive. He went on to write more than a thousand works, among them the scores for Zorba the Greek, Z and Serpico, earning three BAFTA nominations, a Golden Globe nomination for Zorba’s Dance and a win for Z. His songs were banned outright under the 1967 to 1974 dictatorship, which also imprisoned him, and it was during those years that he set camp survivors’ verse to music as the Mauthausen Trilogy. He died in Athens in 2021, aged ninety-six, still the composer most closely identified with Greece’s own sound.
The concert paired his Zorbas Suite for flute and orchestra with a selection of his songs sung by Alkistis Protopsalti, and opened with the world premiere of Nestor Taylor’s Invocation for voice and orchestra, sung by the mezzo-soprano Melina Jaharis. Held in the close acoustics of Cadogan Hall on Sloane Terrace, it set a newly commissioned work beside the music of a composer who had once been banned from being played at all.