World Greek Language Day will be celebrated on Monday in Melbourne with an event at the Capitol Theatre, a venue of historic significance for the Greek diaspora.
The event is free of charge, but all 600-plus seats have been allocated. Interest from the Greek community was significant, with more than 2,000 people unable to secure a place according to sources.
The event will be the first organised celebration in the world following UNESCO’s decision to allocate February 9 as World Greek Language Day, to be followed by a community event in Perth.
An initiative of the Australian Institute of Macedonian Studies, invitations and media announcements were issued to the press and radio, and an Organising Committee was established. The committee met at the Lyceum Hall of Alphington Grammar and was responsible for organising the event.
The Organising Committee is made up of representatives of institutions and academics involved in Greek language education.
The program of this historic event will be presented by lawyer Konstantinos Kalymnios (in Greek) and television presenter Helen Kapalos (in English).
According to information released, young men and women from the Pegasus Dance Academy of Sotiris Sotiriou, wearing representative traditional costumes from various geographical regions of Greece, will accompany the presenters and speakers on stage.
Guests will be welcomed from 7.00pm at the entrance by members of the Pegasus Academy and students from the day schools. From 7.30pm, inside the theatre, students will accompany the flow of the event with music.
The evening will begin with the first two Acts of Mythodea by Vangelis Papathanassiou, as performed among the ruins of the columns of the Temple of Olympian Zeus, the largest temple of ancient Greece.
Following the introductory welcome by the President of the Greek Community of Melbourne and Victoria, there will be a 20-minute keynote lecture by former Federal Court of Appeal judge of Queensland, Anthe Philippides.
This will be followed by artistic recitations of the text by Greece’s Nobel Prize-winning poet Odysseas Elytis, “They gave me the Greek language”, by Dr Dimitri Gonis and Betty Exintaris. Then, actors Jeremy Artis and Katerina Poutachidou will deliver a poetic rendition of eight couplets from the Hymn to Liberty by Greek poet Dionysios Solomos, on the anniversary of whose death World Greek Language Day is celebrated.
The musical program will begin with the performance of four Byzantine hymns accompanied by cello, sung by the chanters of EIKON Artists — hymns that are considered monuments of musical interpretation.
The EIKON chanters, under the direction of choirmaster Ioanna Nikoloulea, will perform some of the oldest and most popular hymns of Christianity.
This will be followed by the presentation of the epilogue of the musical composition Nikitiria from the Symphony Leventia by the great Greek classical composer Manolis Kalomiris. The performance will be conducted by renowned Australian conductor Douglas Heywood OAM, with the Camerata Chorus of Melbourne, a 45-member choir, and a number of sopranos.
The performance of Nikitiria, as well as the rest of the songs, will be sung by the choir in the Greek language, following preparatory transcription into Latin characters by Dr Dimitri Gonis. Musical direction will be by experienced composer Andreas Koikas, with an instrumental ensemble of twelve musicians.
Fourteen songs will be performed, with music and choir, set to poetry by Seferis, Elytis and Ritsos — works that marked milestones in modern Greek history — composed by Xarchakos, Hadjidakis and Theodorakis.
After the conclusion of the musical repertoire, Awards of Gratitude will be announced and presented to five Philhellenes of Victoria who, through their actions and contributions, have offered intellectual, social, cultural and political support to Greece and the Greek people. The event will close with the national anthems, performed by the Camerata Chorus, the school choir of the day schools, in a musical arrangement by Andreas Koikas, with the participation of sopranos.
The official program of the World Greek Language Day celebrations will be published and offered free to guests. It is a comprehensive 28-page program, kindly designed and typeset by Maria Sakellaridou and her company Inkprint, and printed by Ellikon Fine Printers.
The Voice of Greece celebrates World Greek Language Day
The Voice of Greece, ERT’s global radio service addressing Greeks worldwide and dedicated to the dissemination, support and promotion of the Greek language and Greek culture, will honour World Greek Language Day with a rich and specially curated program featuring tributes and special guests.
Throughout the day, linguists and educators, academics, institutional representatives and members of diaspora communities will speak live with the producers of the Voice of Greece. Musical tributes featuring settings of Greek poetry and special podcast content will also be broadcast.
The schedule:
8.00am Kales Thalasses with Antonis Karagiannakis, selected prose and poetry about the sea, ships and the lives of sailors will be aired. Guests include theatre practitioner and author Stelios Mainas discussing his book Arodu, captain and author Michalis Karpathakis, as well as radio operator Manolis Lykakis and Captain Antonis Mikelis, speaking about their poetry collections on ships and seafarers.
9.00am Nikolas Angelidis on the program Ora Elladas will present a radio documentary tribute to the Greek press and diaspora media from 1790 to today.
10.00am to 12.00pm Greece in the World with Giorgos Dionysopoulos, speakers will include Giorgos Vlachos, education coordinator for Southern Africa; Ioannis, Metropolitan of Zambia and Mozambique; Ioannis Karras, Professor of Applied Linguistics at the Ionian University; and representatives of the Ministry of Education.
12.00pm Fouli Zavitsanou will host linguist Valli Litra, Professor at Goldsmiths, University of London, and President of the international special interest group Teaching Greek Abroad, for a discussion on multilingualism and the learning of Modern Greek overseas.
1.00pm Stavroula Karali will welcome Christoforos Charalambakis, Emeritus Professor of the University of Athens, who will speak about the historical framework of the Greek language, focusing on idioms, local dialects and linguistic varieties.
2.00pm the English-language program Greek Music Express with Iraklis Oikonomou will present a tribute featuring songs based on poems by Greece’s two Nobel laureates, Giorgos Seferis and Odysseas Elytis, including excerpts from their Nobel Prize acceptance speeches.
3.00pm The Sprites of Tradition with Maria Koutsimpiri will present the scholarly and educational work of Dr Simaioforos Theologos under the general title Hellenic Logos.
4.00pm Our Global Voice with Dimitris Kontogiannis will host two people who played a decisive role in establishing 9 February as World Greek Language Day: Giorgos Koumoutsakos, Greece’s Ambassador to UNESCO and leader of the initiative, and Christos Clairis, Emeritus Professor of Linguistics at the Sorbonne.
5.00pm We Stay Here with Elena Karagianni, featuring guests Vangelis Velentzas, educator and President of the Association of Greeks in Finland, and Achilleas III, author and nominee for the 2025 State Literary Awards.
6.00pm the Voice of Greece will broadcast the double tribute episode of Historical Walks with Marilena Katsimi, focusing on the journey of the Greek language from prehistory to the present, with guest Eleni Karantzola, Professor of Linguistics at the University of the Aegean.
8.00pm for two hours, the music program Asymmetric Time with Stelios Ioannidis will present a tribute to Greek poetry set to music. During the second hour, Christos Synnefakis, educator and PhD candidate in New Technologies and Artificial Intelligence at the University of Crete, will be a guest.
10.00pm a special episode of Our City will be broadcast for the Day, in which Themis Rodamitis speaks with Professor Yiannis Korinthios, the inspirer and driving force behind the establishment of World Greek Language Day and a leading figure of the diaspora, founding member of the Naples Community and former President of the Federation of Greek Communities and Brotherhoods.
Throughout the broadcasts, the Voice of Greece’s short poetry segments The Poet of the Week will be aired, along with the celebratory podcast series The Greek Language Is…, in which Greek children from schools abroad describe, in their own unique way, what the Greek language means to them.
