LiMSO Christmas Gala 2025: Tchaikovsky & Winter Magic
🎟️ Date & Time: Monday, December 22, 2025 | 20:30📍 Venue: Pattigio Municipal Theater of Limassol🎶 Conductor: Francis Nektarios Guy🎹 Soloist: Anna Avramidou, piano — Winner of the Cooper International Piano Competition 2025 (Cleveland, USA)🎄 Orchestra: Limassol Municipal Symphony Orchestra (LiMSO)
👉 Ticket Reservations: www.pattihio.com.cy/class/limso-christmas-gala-concert
LiMSO Christmas Gala 2025: Tchaikovsky & Winter Magic
Limassol celebrates Christmas through the brightest concert of the year!
A musical journey that unites generations, inspires emotions and brings Limassol to the center of the festivities.
The Limassol Municipality Symphony Orchestra (LiMSO) invites the public to its 4th Christmas Gala Concert, entitled Tchaikovsky & Winter Magic, on Monday, December 22 at the Patticheio Municipal Theater of Limassol.
An evening that combines romance, skill and festive sparkle, under the musical direction of Francis Guy and with soloist Anna Avramidou on the piano. At the heart of the program is the Piano Concerto no. 1 by Tchaikovsky – one of the most brilliant and moving works of the romantic repertoire.
The young Cypriot pianist Anna Avramidou, winner of the Cooper International Piano Competition 2025 for her performance with the Cleveland Orchestra, returns to Limassol two years after her triumphant appearance with the LiMSO, to once again enchant the audience with passion, technical excellence and artistic maturity. Alongside the concerto, the program includes Tchaikovsky's festive pages – excerpts from the masterpieces Eugene Onegin and The Nutcracker – as well as other symphonic creations that flood the stage with melody, emotion and winter magic.
With the brilliance of Tchaikovsky's music, the energy of the LiMSO and the presence of an emerging international soloist, this year's Gala Concert promises to be an unforgettable experience, filling the Pattichion Theater with light, emotion and festive joy.
Francis Nektarios Guy
Conductor | Musicologist
Dr. Francis Nektarios Guy, is a distinguished Anglo-Cypriot conductor and musicologist, known for his concerts and academic publications, focusing on the medieval and contemporary music of Western and Southeastern Europe.
He has collaborated and studied with world-renowned conductors, composers and musicologists, such as George Siciliano, Dimitar Christoff, Georgi Robev, Vassil Kazandjiev and Yuri Simonov, among others.
With a rich repertoire in symphonic and operatic music, Francis finds particular challenge and satisfaction in combining his concerts with his research. A typical example is the interpretation of works written without meters / expansions (free bar-line notation), which he has presented in a series of concerts in Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, Poland and Russia. This innovative approach highlights contemporary composers such as Michel Jarrell, Pierre Boulez, Giya Kancheli, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Yiannis Christou and Dimitar Christoff.
Francis is the founder and artistic director of Commandaria Orchestra, a symphonic ensemble based in Limassol, participating in numerous local and international projects. Among them stands out the collaboration with the Comédie de Genève for Michel Jarrell's opera Cassandre, presented as part of Pafos 2017 – European Capital of Culture, with the participation of the famous Fanny Ardant. His achievements also include recordings of Dimitar Christoff's music for the Bulgarian National Radio, concert series with the Sofia Sinfonietta, and collaborations with the Sofia National Opera and the Varna State Opera.
In addition, Francis, together with his colleagues from Limassol, founded in collaboration with the Municipality of Limassol, the Limassol Municipality Symphony Orchestra (LiMSO), of which he is a member, organizing and conducting many of its concerts each year.
Anna Avramidou
Piano | soloist
Anna Avramidou was born in 2008 in Cyprus to parents of the Greek Diaspora. He started piano lessons at the age of five at the Musica Mundana Conservatory in the class of Mrs. Mariolas Haritidou. He has been distinguished in international competitions in Cyprus, Greece, Germany, Mexico, Russia, America and Switzerland.
In addition to her competition successes, Anna has attended numerous piano masterclasses with distinguished pianists and teachers, such as Marios Papadopoulos, Thomas Duis, Mira Marchenko, Jacob Katsnelson, Fedele Antonicelli, Natalia Trull, Boris o Petrushansky, Mikhail Voskresensky, Kathryn Stott and Arie Vardi.
She gave her first piano recital at the age of nine. Since then, he has performed at major festivals including the Barletta Festival in Italy, Weimar, Germany, the Pharos Arts Foundation in Cyprus, as well as participating in the Oxford Piano Festival 2025. In addition, he collaborated with cellist Andrei Ionita and pianist Igor Andreev in the Technopolis concert series.
Anna appeared as a soloist with the Cyprus Symphony Orchestra, the Cyprus Youth Symphony Orchestra, the Commandaria Orchestra, also the Limassol Municipality Symphony Orchestra, as well as the Thessaloniki State Orchestra.
In September 2022, he started studying at the Purcell School for Young Musicians in London under the guidance of Mrs. Tessa Nicholson. During her studies, she participated in concerts in the UK, including Wigmore Hall, Leeds International Concert Season and the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.
In 2023, he won the 6th Franz Liszt International Piano Competition for Young Pianists in Weimar, Germany where he received the Grand Prix, Liszt Prize, Classical Sonata Prize, EMCY Prize and the Junior Jury Prize.
Anna's recent success was in July 2025 where she won the Cooper International Piano Competition in Oberlin, Ohio (USA), collaborating with the Cleveland Orchestra at Severance Hall. A few months later, she excelled at the Clara Haskil International Competition, reaching the semi-finals, where she was awarded the Jeune Critique Prize.
From 2022, Anna is a scholarship holder of the A.G. Foundation. Leventis.
LIMESOS MUNICIPAL SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA (LiMSO)
Studying the cultural flourishing of Limassol during the second half of the 20th century, one can distinguish, among many other initiatives and successes for local conditions, the efforts to create and maintain a chamber orchestra based on European standards.
October 22, 2019 is a milestone, as, after continuous consultations with active citizens of Limassol, the Chamber Orchestra of the Municipality of Limassol held its first concert. The event was organized by the Municipality of Limassol and was dedicated to the memory of Solon Michaelides, under the direction of Mikis Michaelides.
In recent years, the orchestra has presented concerts originally as a string ensemble, with performances such as From Darkness to Freedom and Angel Hymns to Human Rhythms. Later, it developed into a symphony orchestra, participating in productions such as Zorbas, Axion Esti, Symphonic Rembetiko, as well as the operas Cavalleria Rusticana and Madame Butterfly. At the same time, it stood out with the symphonic tribute to Nikolas Oikonomou and the established Christmas Gala Concerts.
All these productions offer a new dynamic and prove the determination for further development of the orchestra, making it an integral pillar of the cultural development of our Cyprus.
