For its founder, Christos D. Lambrakis, the Athens Concert Hall was the realization of a dream, and an invaluable cultural project in which our country can take great pride.

A founding member of the Friends of Music in 1953, Christos D. Lambrakis took over as Chairman of the Board in 1977, succeeding the founder of the Association Alexandra Trianti. He worked tirelessly to secure the creation of the Concert Hall, one of the world’s largest and most modern cultural centres.

The Athens Concert Hall Organization was founded in 1981, with Christos D. Lambrakis as its President, and undertook responsibility for completing work on the Concert Hall and then administering its activities.

Ten years later, on 20 March 1991, the sound of the viola of Yuri Basmet, with the Moscow soloists, inaugurated the Friends of Music Hall. The same year the Kamerata came into being, the Friends of Music’s own orchestra.

Architects, engineers and specialist consultants from all over Europe worked closely together to create a cultural centre with venues that will meet the requirements of the world’s top orchestras and musical ensembles, as well as a superbly equipped conference centre – one of the largest anywhere in the world.

In the eighteen years in which it was run under the guidance of Christos Lambrakis, the Concert Hall developed an unprecedented level of cultural activity, in three main areas. It has opened up a real channel of communication between Greek and European cultural forces, bringing to Athens some of the most distinguished artists and companies of our time, while taking the best of Greek culture out into the wider world. At the same time, investing actively in the future, it has developed an ambitious educational programme, bringing young people from all over Greece into contact with the world of music and the arts. And meanwhile, it continues to support in every possible way the traditional and contemporary arts in Greece.

In an event of truly European significance, on 1 December 2003 the Concert Hall opened the doors of its International Conference Centre, in the presence of the then Prime Minister of Belgium, Guy Verhofstadt, the President of the European Commission, Romano Prodi, and the Greek Prime Minister Konstantinos Simitis.

A few months later, on 2 May 2004, the great conductor Sir Simon Rattle conducted a concert by the Berlin Philharmonic and the Greek violinist Leonidas Kavakos – an event attended by Christos Lambrakis and marking the final and complete realization of his dream.