Athens Festival 2009: the press conference *updated*

The press conference on the programming of the 2009 Athens Festival has just come to an end.

Here are the highlights of the conference:

* President of the Festival, Yorgos Loukos criticised "politely" the administration of the Greek National Opera and justified his decision to exclude them from the Athens Festival

* He also admitted that the 2009 Athens Festival faced various inconveniences regarding opera and classical music

* Hooray for concert-goers:

Concerts of

- Daniel Barenboim and the La Scala Orchestra

- Mark Minkowski and his Musiciens du Louvre

- Esa Pekka Salonen and the Philharmonia Orchestra

were announced!

Stay tuned! More to come sooooon...

UPDATE

At the website of the Festival you can already find the full schedule.

Not so bad in terms of dance/theatre (Helen Mirren, Ethan Hawke, La Fura dels Baus etc etc), and with names like Barenboim or Minkowski no music lover can complain but my impression is that this, is by far the *poorest* festival of the last few years.