For the fifth year, the cultural festival An Evening Under the Olive Tree returns to Naxos from 8 to 10 October 2026, with a three-day programme bringing together gastronomy, education and music, centred around the historic Kambones estate.
The festival is a flagship initiative of the cultural organisation Polykríti and its president, Maria Polykreti, who since 2022 has been consistently developing a dynamic programme of cultural activity rooted in Naxos. At its heart is a clear vision: for the island’s cultural heritage, local knowledge, gastronomy, arts and creative traditions to find contemporary expression, be passed on to future generations and forge new connections with people and ideas from Greece and abroad.
Maria Polykreti’s personal initiative and active involvement have played a defining role in this journey. Through Polykríti, she creates collaborations across different fields, invites prominent figures to engage with Naxos, and invests in initiatives that bring contemporary art, music, gastronomy, education and the transmission of knowledge into dialogue. A common thread runs through them all: highlighting the island’s identity through its own cultural capital, while cultivating an outward-looking cultural presence with lasting impact.
Key milestones in this activity include the exhibition and discussion Rewoven: Memory Woven Again, presented in Naxos and Athens; the educational programmes Naxos Photo Lab, Naxos News – Good News and The Smart Table; the Rewoven weaving workshop; and the recent contemporary art exhibition Nurturing Mechanisms: Interweavings at Kambones. Different initiatives converge around a shared direction, activating memory and local knowledge, encouraging participation and creating new connections between cultural heritage and contemporary creative practice.
At the heart of this journey remains An Evening Under the Olive Tree. The festival was launched in 2022 as a musical gathering beneath the centuries-old olive trees of the Kambones estate and, over the course of five years, has evolved into a multi-day cultural event, steadily expanding its content, collaborations and presence.
Previous editions have welcomed prominent figures from the worlds of music and the arts, including Manolis Mitsias, Giannis Kotsiras, Giorgis Xylouris, Grigoris Valtinos, Adriana Babali and ethnomusicologist Christopher King. Gastronomy has also become one of the festival’s central pillars, with the participation of acclaimed professionals from Greece and abroad, including M.O.F. chefs Arnaud Larher and Eulalie Rus, Stéphane Jakić, Luca Piscazzi, Giacomo Tranquilli and Andrea Mura.
The significance of the festival lies precisely in this coexistence. Music, gastronomy, knowledge, education and local production function as different expressions of a shared cultural identity, creating new opportunities each year for encounters and exchange, with Naxos as their point of reference.
The full programme of events and activities of the 5th Cultural Festival An Evening Under the Olive Tree will be presented by journalist Nikos Thrasyvoulou, who will accompany this year’s edition throughout its duration.
Thursday, 8 October | Polikriti Gastronomic Dialogues
This year’s festival opens at Kambones with the Polikriti Gastronomic Dialogues, a gathering that places gastronomy at the centre of a broader conversation around ingredients, local production, culinary memory, knowledge and contemporary Greek creativity.
Participating chefs include Haris Nikolouzos, Michalis Hasikos, Giannis Loukakos, Haris Vlachos and Gikas Xenakis, alongside figures from journalism and gastronomic communication, including Nikos Mastropavlos, Nana Dareioti and Andreas Androulidakis.
The Polikriti Gastronomic Dialogues approach gastronomy as an integral part of a place’s cultural identity. Ingredients, the people who produce them, knowledge passed down from one generation to the next, and the creativity that continues to shape it all become the starting points for a conversation around contemporary Greek gastronomy and the ways in which a place can tell its story and express its character through taste.
Friday, 9 October | Passing Knowledge on to the Next Generation
On Friday, 9 October, the festival’s gastronomic experience meets the younger generation through visits by the participating chefs to schools across Naxos, alongside special masterclasses for children.
The chefs will work alongside students to create simple recipes, with an emphasis, wherever possible, on the use of local products. The children will actively participate in the process, discover the ingredients, engage with culinary professionals and approach cooking as an experience of creativity, knowledge and connection with their home island.
This initiative reflects a fundamental aspect of Polykríti’s philosophy: passing knowledge on through hands-on participation and creating opportunities for younger generations to encounter people, practices and ideas that can deepen their relationship with Naxos’s cultural and productive identity.
Saturday, 10 October | “An Evening Under the Olive Tree”
On Saturday, 10 October, the festival reaches its culmination at Kambones with the musical evening at the heart of the institution.
Violinist Evanthia Reboutsika joins pianist Andreas Symvoulopoulos beneath the olive trees of the historic estate, in a musical encounter that returns to the festival’s original inspiration and connects artistic creation with the distinctive character of the place.
The fifth edition of An Evening Under the Olive Tree now reflects a journey that extends beyond the festival itself. It is part of the wider cultural activity of Polykríti and the ongoing work of Maria Polykreti, whose cultural, artistic, gastronomic and educational initiatives are creating a framework through which Naxos articulates its contemporary cultural identity with consistency, creativity and an international outlook.
At Kambones, the olive tree remains the enduring symbol of this continuity. Its roots hold the memory of the place, while around it, new encounters, ideas and cultural experiences continue to take shape.
www.polykriti.gr
