What would you harvest if you mixed and matched the centuries, the arts and the desire to comprehend Love, with the deep thirst to fully experience Life and a touch of Xinomavro wine? The answer is a hymn to felicity, created by a brilliant team of artists and supported by the Fani Boutari Foundation; a novel Symposium, which was presented before an enthusiastic audience, on Friday, March 18, 2016 on “Emilios Riadis” stage at Thessaloniki Concert Hall.

“Symposium”, is the labor of love of Dimitris Maramis, a young charismatic composer, who drew his material from the exceptional four-volume anthology “Wine in Poetry” published on account of the Fani Boutari Foundation, in 1995.

Wine as an eternal stream of history that seamlessly connects the beginning of Greek civilization with modern times, is ever so present in the performance of this original composition, that attempts to clarify the mystery of love, and infuse the audience with the enduring ideas and works of great ancient thinkers and poets, such as Homer, Plato, Socrates and earlier writers including Yiannis Ritsos and Napoleon Lapathiotis. The choice of verses blends timeless symbols and concepts like Dionysus, vineyard, Eros, grapes as kisses, wine as blood, euphoria and gloominess, hope and despair, humor and sobriety. The joy of harvest in a beautiful day alternates with the longing of the beloved in a cabaret, the ecstatic look of Dionysus with the pure appearance of the Virgin, the sensual rhymes of Constantine Cavafy with the meek gospel of John, the charming melancholy of interwar with the Bacchanalian orgies and the anthems to Cupid…

Nowhere do the splendor, darkness, and sustenance of love, come more vibrantly and savory alive than in wine. “Every wine carries the soul of its maker”, said the Mayor of Thessaloniki and founder of Kir-Yianni, Yiannis Boutaris, in his warm and brief address; underlying with his words the giving and the nourishment that every creative process and human pursuit of excellence contains.

And it was these offerings that the fortunate audience received during the concert, which continued flowing after it, at the foyer of the “Emilios Riadis” Hall, where everybody had the opportunity to enjoy distinguished wines from Naoussa and Amyndeo, and furthermore, to share feelings, impressions and concerns on our world’s current affairs.

In these times of turbulence, characterized by natural and spiritual uprooting, “Symposium”, was a blissful occasion indulging our hearts and reminding us what Stellios Boutaris CEO of Kir-Yianni pointed out a few minutes before the first notes reached our ears: “that the essence of real, truthful love is embedded in our ability and intention to understand and offer.”