Mystery 125 Elefsina Community Orchestra and Choir

Is music really accessible to everyone? Can everyone contribute to the composition process? The answer is YES, and it is given by Mystery 125, the great Community Orchestra and Choir of Elefsina which will fill the streets of the city on 17 December as part of the three-day Closing Ceremony of the 2023 Eleusis European Capital of Culture.

Mystery 125 involves the creation of a community orchestra and choir with the participation of people of all ages and all social groups, professionals and amateurs, musicians and non-musicians, workers, students, pupils, disabled people, elderly people. Drawing inspiration from the sound memories of the people in Elefsina, the city’s Community Orchestra and Choir, having contributed actively in the composition of the final repertoire of this musical celebration, will perform in two activities: a parade along the city and a concert in the Eleourgiki Industrial Complex.

A few words about Mystery 125
Each person has a different sound memory, which is largely musical. These “musical memories” will give birth to new music, never heard before, but in a strange way very familiar to everyone. Initially, creative workshops will be held with the various groups of people to generate the first musical ideas and lyrics. Then, in collaboration with the Young Musicians Group from Santa Maria da Feira, Portugal, these ideas will be collected and arranged for the whole orchestra, with the participation of musicians from music schools, wind bands and choirs from the local community, etc.

At the same time, artistic workshops will be held under the guidance of the Portuguese artist Marta Fernandes to construct giant light figures representing characters from Elefsina’s past and present, as an artistic dialogue with the musical themes that the groups will compose.

Aleksandar Caric is the initiator and artistic director of the project, with extensive experience in the composition of community projects and the organisation of large-scale events. Since 2008 he has been the director of the Orquestra Criativa de Santa Maria da Feira in Portugal, known for its Organic Music Creation method. The Elefsina Community Orchestra and Choir will be developed using this very method, but not as a sterile copy of the model already tested. As every place is different and every community has its own crossover of different cultures, the final parade and concert will be a completely new creation, based on the sound memory of the people of Elefsina. The inclusion of different groups from the local community is at the core of the project and at the same time a proof that music is accessible to all.

Participants in the parade, which will last from 45 minutes to an hour, will play and make simple movements with TUBOFONES, simple musical instruments made of plastic tubes.