The year 2022 was dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the Smyrna Catastrophe. Students of the 2nd and 3rd grade of the Music School High School of Thessaloniki were creatively inspired by the historical novel “Bloody Soils” by Dido Sotiriou and by archival photographic material about Smyrna. Through the experiential dimension of the Modern Greek Literature course, they were encouraged to love reading, so that they could learn, by reading entire literary works, the heyday of Asia Minor and the eradication of Greeks from Smyrna from its ancient centers and not let historical events pass into oblivion. They became aware of the refugee issue and acquired humanitarian and anti-war ideals. At the same time, they acquired aesthetic culture and worked collaboratively.

Through a series of interdisciplinary approaches and connecting school and their lives, the students created the 2022 calendar, visually depicting scenes of multicultural and cosmopolitan Smyrna with its variety of nations and religions and its rich intellectual, commercial and social life. Through creative writing, they wrote their own e-book with various types of texts such as diaries, letters, short stories and practiced language and style. They created their own short movie film, which was accompanied by their original music compositions (soundtrack). The students wrote scores, studied and performed their own compositions on their musical instruments, recorded them in a studio. All this musical production was compiled on a digital CD and presented at a concert to the public of Thessaloniki.

Technology, original creation, collaborative spirit, music from theory to practice, the interdisciplinary experiential approach to our history led to a special anniversary tribute to the Smyrna Catastrophe that lasted one and a half academic years and can be a proposal for the implementation of corresponding anniversary tributes in the school activities.

• Interdisciplinary approaches in music education

Evangelia Mitsopoulou studied at the State Conservatory of Thessaloniki, at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Department of Italian Language & Literature & Music Studies), at the Department of Music Science & Art of the University of Macedonia (PhD under scholarship). She appeared as a soloist in Greece (Athens/ Thessaloniki/Komotini Concert Hall, DIMITRIA Festival, etc.), Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Cyprus, the USA (Weill Recital Hall, Carnegie Hall). She has been awarded First Prize at the Bradshaw & Buono International Piano Competition in New York, First Prize at the Panhellenic/Pancyprian “Golden Muse” Piano Competition, the MYKONIOU Prize by Academy of Athens, the “Gina Bachauer” Prize by Mundo en Armonia and a Fulbright Foundation scholarship. She has released her CD “Inspired by Dante” online by FM Records (2016) with the world premiere performance of the Liszt-Tausig manuscript score "Dante Symphony" for solo piano, for which the pianist Leslie Howard declares: "...Dr Mitsopoulou’s performance is a splendid sound-document of this transcription. She deals with its fearsome technical demands without flinching or faltering, and commands the shape of the piece as if she were conducting it". Paul Badura-Skoda states: “…Ms. Mitsopoulou is a charismatic pianist, exceptionally intelligent, an experienced performer of a wide range of repertoire”. She is a piano teacher at the Music School of Thessaloniki, while since 2018 she has been a Fine Arts teacher trainer (B level) in Computer programs of ITYE-DIOFANTOS/Greek Ministry of Education.