Today Greece celebrates Tsiknopempti, (or "grilling day"), which occurs during the Carnival period, prior the fasting season of Easter Lent. The Greek name is derived from the word tsikna, meaning the smell of charred meat, as traditionally, on Tsiknopempti, great quantities of roasted meat are consumed, in the midst of a Carnival atmosphere. Along with the helpings of grilled meat, masquerades and musicians playing traditional instruments stroll around.

M U S I C

The Greek Cypriot composer Yannis Kyriakides, one of contemporary music’s finest young composers plays with the electro-acoustic ensemble Maze, at the Onassis Cultural Centre, Upper Stage, on February 20. Composition and improvisation, tradition filtered through new technologies, and innovative performance frame Kyriakidis’ works, including the award-winning Paramyth. In this concert, the ensemble will perform a series of multimedia works which foreground the voice and narrative.

The relatively new Greek group Belleville will play at the Half Note Jazz Club on February 26. In their performances revives a cabaret atmosphere. In its performances the group revives the cabaret atmosphere and shows a strong preference to jazz, blues and the interwar period swing.

C O N F E R E N C E

The one-day conference Elective Affinities: Five debates on the dialogic nature of human knowledge, organized by the group Thales + Friends, will be held at the Benaki Museum, on February 22. Ten practitioners of different disciplines will meet to explore areas of agreement and disagreement in a process that will touch upon many open issues in the study of human society. The conference will begin with the dialogue between mathematics and economics, then move on to political science and history and conclude with the dialogue between literature and mathematics.

C H I L D R E N

A concert for the whole family will be staged by the Athens State Orchestra at the Athens Concert Hall, on February 23. The repertoire includes Sergei Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf and Francis Poulenc’s “The story of Babar,” the little elephant. Gerasimos Gennatas will be the narrator and Andreas Tselikas will be conducting.