The Anopolis World Music Festival returns for its sixth consecutive year and invites you to join us on 8, 9 and 10 September 2026 for a three-day celebration of contemporary musical creation in the public spaces and monuments of Ano Poli (Upper Town), Thessaloniki.
With its most extensive programme to date, this year’s festival presents 13 concerts across 9 different locations in Ano Poli, all with free admission for everyone.
Over the past six years, the festival has transformed more than thirty different corners of Ano Poli into places of musical encounter, highlighting the unique character of a neighbourhood where history, memory and everyday life coexist. Each year, we return to beloved locations while also discovering and proposing new ones, continuously remapping public space through music and collective experience.
This year’s concerts will take place in nine different locations throughout An Poli: courtyards, monuments, towers, gardens, squares, alleyways and balconies overlooking the city - spaces that carry the stories of those who once passed through them and those who live here today. Music becomes an invitation to wander through familiar and lesser-known routes, rediscovering the city through a different perspective.
This year’s artistic programme brings together artists who draw inspiration from the musical traditions of the Balkans, the Black Sea region, Anatolia, the Mediterranean, the Middle East, Central Europe, North Africa and West Africa. Through original compositions, arrangements, improvisations, musical storytelling and intercultural dialogues, musical traditions meet contemporary creation and engage with elements of flamenco, jazz, electronic music and body music, revealing the countless ways in which musical cultures influence and transform one another.
Six years after its first edition, the Anopolis World Music Festival remains faithful to its original vision: to showcase contemporary musical creation inspired by the world’s musical traditions and to provide a platform for artists exploring new ways of engaging with them. Rooted in Thessaloniki and its vibrant artistic community, the festival consistently highlights and supports local artistic creation while also welcoming musical voices and collaborations from across Greece and abroad.
In a neighbourhood historically shaped by the encounter of different communities, languages and cultures, the festival’s concerts propose music as a shared space for expression and communication. Through sounds that travel across places and eras, the festival celebrates the value of multiculturalism, dialogue and coexistence in public space.
We look forward to meeting you in both familiar and newly discovered corners of Ano Poli and celebrating together the power of music to bring people, places and cultures closer.
Thank you for being with us throughout these years.
The Organising Team
Tessie Giannakina, Aris Magripis, Elena Moudiri Chasiotou, Eleni Christodoulou
The Anopolis World Music Festival is organised by olipoli non-profit civil organization, under the auspices and with the support of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and the Directorate of Culture and Tourism of the Municipality of Thessaloniki, with the support of the J.F. Costopoulos Foundation, the support of the Municipality of Neapoli-Sykies, with the participation of Kyklos - incommon’s lab, and in collaboration with the Third Municipal Community of the Municipality of Thessaloniki and the Ephorate of Antiquities of the City of Thessaloniki.
Check the detailed program: