Mortality and Poetry: What the Poets of Modern Greece Tell Us

Thursday, November 13th, 2025, 7:00 pm
at 150W17TH, 150 West 17th Street, New York City (directions)

The Hellenic-American Cultural Foundation welcomes Professor Emeritus of Modern Greek and Comparative Literature David Ricks, who will read his own translations of more than a dozen modern Greek poets, from Dionysios Solomos to Michalis Ganas, and comment on some of the challenges of translating modern Greek verse into English.

David Ricks graduated from the Universities of Oxford and London before teaching at the University of Birmingham and at King’s College London, where, with Sir Roderick Beaton, he supervised some forty doctoral dissertations on modern Greek literature and culture. He is the editor, with Baukje van den Berg, of the journal Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, and has written widely on the classical tradition and on medieval and modern Greek poetry, in addition to translating from the work of many Greek poets. A bilingual selection from his 2024 verse collection, With Signs Following, has recently been published by Nasos Vayenas as Σημεῖα τῶν καιρῶν and will be on sale for cash purchases after the reading.

There will be a reception following the event.

Courage and Compassion: A Jewish Boyhood in German-Occupied Greece
March 11th, 2025, at 150W17TH

The Hellenic-American Cultural Foundation welcomed historian and author Tony Molho in conversation with Professor Mark Mazower. The author of Courage and Compassion: A Jewish Boyhood in German-Occupied Greece, Molho discussed his early childhood in Greece during the German occupation, how his parents risked everything to hide him, and the ordinary people who selflessly protected his family. He also shared how his Jewish and Greek identity, and the trauma of the Holocaust, has informed the course of his own life.

Tony Molho is the David Herlihy University Professor Emeritus at Brown University and Professor Emeritus of History and Civilization at the European University Institute. He has written numerous books, and the Greek edition of his book Courage and Compassion was awarded the Ouranis Prize of the Academy of Athens. An interview with Professor Molho can be heard on Cosmos FM.

Mark Mazower, Ira D. Wallach Professor of History, comments on international affairs and reviews books for the London Review of Books and The New York Review of Books, amongst other publications. He co-created the film, Techniques of the Body, and his most recent book, The Greek Revolution: 1821 and the Making of Modern Europe, won the Duff Cooper Prize. He is the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Director of the Columbia Institute for Ideas and Imagination, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Fellow of the British Academy.

A reception followed the event, where copies of Tony Molho’s book were available for purchase and for him to sign. A review of the concert can be read in The National Herald.

 

Poetic Soundscapes: Timotheos Gavriilidis-Petrin and Alexia Mouza
February 5, 2025, at Kaufman Music Center

The Hellenic-American Cultural Foundation hosted the New York debut of two premier Greek musicians of the next generation, cellist Timotheos Gavriilidis-Petrin and pianist Alexia Mouza.

As a prize winner at the International Paulo Cello Competition, Timotheos was praised for his “great and passionate soloist style.” He is a member of the chamber music group ApollΩn Ensemble – founded by Leonidas Kavakos, and a founding member of Trio Zimbalist. Timotheos was also named Artist-in-Residence at “Performance Today,” the most listened-to classical music radio program in the US, and has performed throughout North America and Europe.

Alexia is a Greek-Venezuelan pianist known for her extraordinary energy, clarity of sound and precision. She has received numerous awards, including from the Manhattan International and Berliner Music Competitions. Having performed throughout Europe, Asian and the Americas, she has appeared as a soloist at the Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra, the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra Sinfonica del Estado de México, the Haydn Orchestra of Bolzano, and the State Symphony Orchestras of Athens and Thessalonik.

Their recital drew from the deepest roots in the musical tradition of the romantic era: Janáček’s Pohádka, Poulenc’s Sonata for Cello and Piano, and Papandopulo’s Rapsodia Concertante. The program closed with Brahms’s Sonata No. 2 in F Major, which centers on the romantic notion of thought, passion and self, making it one of the most striking compositions for cello and piano. A reception followed the event.

A review of the concert can be read in The National Herald.