ORCHESTRA - a digital platform for interactive cultural experiences

The interactive platform ORCHESTRA uses digital technology and digital content to offer a new type of interactive productions for music and cultural experiences that can adapt to a variety of audiences and needs. It utilizes an array of multimedia digital content in order to support cultural and/or educational goals. Multimedia content, new software, audio systems, gesture-interacting systems, projection systems and a large number of devises are all ‘orchestrated’ so as to effectively tell a story and offer an immersive experience.

Cultural institutions, libraries and museums represent some of the possible venues that ORCHESTRA can operate. Their artifacts and digital content can be presented through storytelling, interactive and participatory experiences and the audience will be immersed into the story, acquiring non-formal educational experiences.

This presentation focuses on a particular scenario that was developed for the digital content available at the Music Library ‘Lilian Voudouri’ of Athens, Greece - “The life and works of Greek contemporary composer Mikis Theodorakis”. The music educational value, music knowledge and skills that are developed for different audience groups, will be explained through the description of the story and the scenario

• Μουσικές εμπειρίες, δια βίου μουσική μάθηση και ευζωία
• Νέες μουσικές-τεχνολογικές εμπειρίες

Smaragda Chrysostomou is Professor of Music Pedagogy and Didactics at the Department of Music Studies, the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. She is the director of the Music Education Lab (http://musicedulab.music.uoa.gr/) and the MA program "Music Education in formal and informal environments" (https://musicedugrad.music.uoa.gr/).

Vera Kriezi holds an MSc in Information Technology Management, University of Paisley in UK and a BSc from the School of Administration & Economics, Department of Library & Information Science of the Technological Educational Institute of Athens. She holds a degree in piano and music theory. Since 2000 she works at The Music Library of Greece of The Friends of Music Society as the Head of Digital Services and New Technologies. Vera is an active member of Europeana participating in Task Forces and Working Groups and elected in Europeana Members Council. She has been involved in national and EU research and educational projects. 

Valia Vraka has been working in the Music Library of Greece”Lilian Voudouri” since 2002. During 2002-2006 she worked as an assistant musicologist for the Mikis Theodorakis Archive and since 2006 she has been working as a musicologist, head of the Greek Music Archive. She participated in the EU and national programme “Creation of a unit of documentation and promotion of Greek music», (3rd Community Support Frame/CSF, 2000-2006). She has worked on the online project «Εuterpe: Songs for schools - Digital Music Anthology» in cooperation with Greek Society for Music Education G.S.M.E.. She worked in the european digital projects,  “Europeana Sounds” and “EuScreenXL”.

Stephanie Merakos holds a B.A.,State University of New York at Buffalo and an M.A. in Musicology, University of Connecticut, USA. She holds a diploma and certification from the International Suzuki Institute andhas taught the Suzuki piano method. Is working at the Music Library “Lilian Voudouri” of the Friends of Music Society since 1995, responsible for the Greek Music Archive. She is the Director of the Library since 2005. Stefaniehas participated in several national and European projects such as EuropeanaSounds and EUScreen. She has presented and published on the subjects of music education and Greek music and its preservation. She is a member of the International Musicological Society (IMS), the International Association of Music Libraries, (IAML), the Committee for the Support of Greek Libraries (CSL) and the Greek committee of Répertoire International de Littérature Musicale (RILM ).

 Foteini Venieri is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Communication, Media and Culture of Panteion University, funded by the State Scholarship Foundation, and adjunct lecturer in the postgraduate program "Public History" of the Hellenic Open University. Since 2017 she is the president of the museum theater company Heterotopia. She graduated from the Department of Theatre Studies of the School of Philosophy of the University of Athens. She followed postgraduate studies  in Cultural Management, in the Department of Communication, Media and Culture of Panteion University, supported by a scholarship from the State Scholarship Foundation. She holds a PhD from the University of Thessaly. Her doctoral dissertation focused on museum theater and was funded by scholarships from the Leventis Foundation and the Papadakis endowment. She was an adjunct lecturer at the Department of Archives, Library Science and Museology of Ionion University and at the postgraduate program “Creative Writing” of the Hellenic Open University (2018,2019). Her research interests include museum theater, public history and archeology, cultural heritage, the interpretation, use and communication of the past in the digital and natural environment and the creation of screenplays, museum theory and museum learning. Her articles have been published in international and Greek scientific journals.

Vassilis Tsetsos received his B.Sc. in Informatics from the Department of Informatics & Telecommunications at the University of Athens, and his M.Sc. in "Communication Systems and Data Networks" from the same Department. In 2010 he received his Ph.D. from the same department. He has participated in many research and development projects since 2003, either as a researcher or a scientific supervisor. His research work includes more than 50 publications in international conferences and journal and chapters in edited books, counting more than 550 citations (h-index: 14).  Since 2011, he leads Mobics S.A., a university of Athens spin-off, that implements solutions based on Informatics, with several activities in the domain of educational and cultural services.

 Odysseas Sekkas received his B.Sc. in Computer Science, Department of Informatics & Telecommunications. NKUA and his M.Sc. in Communication Systems and Data Networks. His Ph.D. (2010, same Department) is in the research area of Pervasive Computing and especially in Context-Aware Data Management.  He has participated in R&D projects funded by the EU FP6, FP7 programmes and in national funded projects. He is Head of R&D at Mobics S.A. and was Technical Manager for Mobics in GINSEC (FP7), Meleagros (national), End2Fire (national), Ydra (national). His research interests focusin the areas of pervasive and mobile computing, wireless sensor networks and data fusion, machine vision.