From 7 to 14 August 2026, Samos Young Artists Festival returns to ancient Theatre of Pythagorio, in Samos, with a program that moves between chamber music, jazz, chanson, world music and Eastern Mediterranean traditions.
The festival, founded in 2010 and developed into an international musical institution with a clear artistic identity, has established Samos as a creative meeting place for young and distinguished artists from Greece and abroad, presenting a program of high requirements, open to different musical languages, times and geographys.
The Artistic Directors
The artistic direction of Samos Young Artists Festival is signed by renowned cellist Timothy Gavrielidis-Petrin, first cello of the Athens State Orchestra and winner of the international competition Paulo Cello, and international pianist Massa Iliasov, with an important artistic route in Europe and USA. Each year, the selection of artists and works serves a double goal: to recommend to the public outstanding new musicians from different countries and traditions, and to create in Samos a listening place with an international horizon.
The Pythagorean
The archaeological site, the proximity to Asia Minor, the history of Samos as a place to meet cultures and sea routes is part of the experience in the small ancient theatre of Pythagorio, under the starry sky, pine trees and overlooking the sea the islands and the Aegean Sea.
Artistic Program 2026
This year's event opens on 7 August with Marion & Sobo Band and the concert "Songs on the Road", a night with Gypsy Jazz, world musicians and French chanson.
In 8 August The concert "The multiple aspects of mastery" brings to the stage clarinetist Petros Andreadis and pianist Chrysanthos Therianos in a program with works by Claude Debussy, Alexander Scriabin, Pablo de Sarasate and other composers highlighting the range and expressive potential of the repertoire for clarinet and piano. The concert also includes the world's first performance of a new work by Isaac Creager, composer of this year's Young Composer in Residence, a collaboration between Schwarz Foundation, Curtis Institute of Music and the Athens Conservatory.
In 10 August, the Opus 13 string quartet presents the concert "Scandinavian flame: Mendelssohn and Grieg". Sonoko Miriam Welde, Edvard Erdal, Albin Uusijärvi and Daniel Thorell, with the String Quartet in la minor, op. 13 of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy and String Quartet No. 1 in solo minors of Edvard Grieg, bring to the festival romantic tension and Scandinavian drama.
In 11 August Evelyne Berezovsky presents the concert "Night Fantasies" for solo piano with works by Sergei Rachmaninoff and Maurice Ravel. The program includes the Variations on a Corelli theme, work 42, transcriptions on Rachmaninov's piano and the Gaspard de la nuit, one of the most important works of 20th century pianist literature.
In 12 August pianist Mathis Picard and drummer Zoe Pascal present a program that brings jazz history to dialogue with contemporary creation. Works by Willie “The Lion” Smith, Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk and Irving Mills coexist with original compositions by Mathis Picard in an evening combining contemporary creation with the classical jazz repertoire
In 13 August The concert "In the heart of Romanticism" brings together works by Alexander Scriabin, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and Anton Arensky with performers George Banos on violin, Euripides Samaras on violin and Love Triantafyllidis on piano. The program highlights the different aspects of Russian music writing in the late 19th century.
In 14 August The festival is completed with the concert "FOS" with Irene in the song Sophia Euclidou on cello and George Kontogiannis on the Cretan lyra. The performance approaches fear as a historical and inherited reality shaped by the experience of the refugees of Asia Minor after 1923 and the collective trauma of displacement and loss carried through generations. The "Light" also focuses on the fear of diversity and loss of identity as it manifests itself in the experience of refugeeism and host societies. Through song and narrative the performance gives voice to stories of memory and displacement approaching fear as a common human experience transformed through time.
With seven nights crossing different repertoires, seasons and music traditions, the Samos Young Artists Festival 2026 confirms its special character: a small-scale but large artistic festival, which invests in the quality of listening, proximity between musicians and the audience, and the meeting of new voices with works and traditions that still produce meaning.
Schwarz Foundation
The Schwarz Foundation is an independent non-profit body that since 2011 has been promoting intercultural exchange between East and West, with an emphasis on contemporary art, research, history and meditation. Through exhibitions, festivals, scholarships, lectures and educational programs, it enhances Greece's presence in international cultural dialogue.
The Schwarz Foundation also holds the exhibition "Straights and futures: contemporary meetings with Classical Archaeology" at Art Space Pythagorion curated by Katerina Gregos and Iolis Zanetaki.
Following the summer exhibition of the Foundation of 2025 entitled "Growing Cultures: 100 years of research by the German Archaeological Institute in Samos", this year's exhibition focuses on the present. The exhibition's starting point is, among other things, the archaeological heritage of Samos Island — a particularly rich and powerful city-state in ancient times. From this position, the report raises broader questions about the political dimension of archaeology, the relationship between material remains and historical truth, as well as the role of archaeology in the formation of the nation and cultural identity.
The group exhibition brings together contemporary artists from Greece and abroad, whose work deals with the visual idioms, material remains and mythological narratives of classical archaeology. Through painting, sculpture, installation, animation and digital media, artists reflect the ways in which ancient forms and archaeological finds still shape our cultural imagination.
Exposure duration: Friday, July 3 – Friday, October 2, 2026