It is 3:00am on the biggest day in the Symi calendar, with the official opening of this year's Festival. The preperations in the central square are well under way and even a couple of hours ago, people were busy setting up the lights and preparing the stage. The concert is by Thanos Mikroutsikos, who together with Mikis Theodorakis are possibly the most famous and most infuential Greek composers alive.

I've grown up with Mikroutsikos's music sung by some of the greatest Greek singers over the years and I can't wait to watch him performing live and sing along with everybody else priviledged enough to be here for the occassion.

For a preview of what will happen in a few hours time, click here.

The events surrounding the premiere started already with a tribute to Yiannis Diakoyiannis (to whom tonight's concert is dedicated) which took place at the courtyard of St John in Yialos a few hours ago. The event was a "traveloque" of the World through the writings and reports of Diakoyiannis. A screen was set up at the back of the courtyard where images and videos were being projected throughout the night. The event started with a video of the announcement of Diakoyannis's death in the evening news of the Greek Public Television last December.

For about an hour and a half, we heard exctracts from Diakoyiannis's work including interviews, editorials, reports as a war correspondent in places such as Iraq, Afganistan, Yugoslavia, and Palestine and his books about the struggle for democracy and human rightsin South America during the 70s and the 80s. Diakoyiannis's words were accompanied by music played by the pianist Katerina Karabatsa with singing by Vasilia Papariga. Vasilia, a personal friend of Diaoyiannis, is the daughter of the General Secretary of the Greek Communist Party (the third biggest party in Greece), Aleka Papariga and a very impressive singer!

Towards the end of the event, extracts from Diakoyiannis's will were read out. He owned no property at all and one of his very few valuable posession, his piano, he left to the Symi Municipal Music School (which has now been renamed as "Yiannis Diakogiannis Music School". He also requested that the money from the sale of his father's book would be given for the highlight and promotion of the "anti-colonial, anti-imperialist, socialist struggle of EMPA, the National Front for the Freedom of the Dodekanese" who fought the two-year British occupation of Symi after the war.

A beautiful evening about a very special man.