The new piece by Yannis Belonis Journey Across the Balkans for Symphony Orchestra, Mixed Choir, and Narrator focuses on the conflict that influenced the cultural dynamics among the Balkan peoples: while chauvinism of nation-states “enforced” the enhancement of national identities, the frequent mixing of populations along with numerous, consecutive border shifts often led to a fusion of traditions and deep intercultural interactions. Therefore, musical cultures that developed in Southeastern Europe, with their distinct differences and similarities, have created a particularly interesting and colourful musical mosaic that keeps evolving through modern sounds, illuminating the complex and often unexplored aspects of the cultural fermentations that have occurred within the Balkan peninsula throughout the centuries.
The music of all the Balkan peoples was processed uniformly to create a performance involving a symphony orchestra, mixed choir, and a narrator. The latter, through the reading of Harris Sarris’ well-documented texts, will shed light on the conflicting and interconnected cultural identities of the people in the region. The performance’s musical journey begins in Greece and returns to its starting point, after traveling through all the states of the Balkan Peninsula – Bulgaria, Turkey, Albania, Serbia, North Macedonia, Romania, Montenegro, Croatia, Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina.