Music is a big part of my life. From 1986 to 1999 I studied piano with the late Eva Anastasiadou-Stange at the National Conservatoire of Greece and with Kimon Maragoudakis at the Classical Conservatoire where I also completed my studies in advanced music theory. I can proudly claim a “direct line of teachers” back to Haydn (via Anastasiadou, Paul Badura-Skoda, Edwin Fischer, Martin Krause, Franz Liszt, Carl Czerny and Ludwig van Beethoven).
I have a big passion for baroque (Scarlatti, Rossi, Couperin, Vivaldi, Corelli, Cavalli, Marais, Albicastro, Geminiani, JS Bach, Handel) and classical music (Mozart, Chopin, Schubert, Brahms, Zemlinsky, Satie), as well as contemporary film soundtracks (Richard Robbins, Alexandre Desplat, Alberto Iglesias, Eleni Karaindrou, Patrick Doyle, Thomas Newman to name but a few). While moving to the UK and focusing on my academic career meant that I never completed my piano diploma studies, I still enjoy practicing in my spare time (currently working on BWV 1055). While my influences are predominantly German (and therefore quite austere in terms of tempo), I feel a lot closer to Edwin Fischer’s – and more recently David Fray’s – style than, say, to Glenn Gould’s (whose recordings I sadly find excruciatingly painful to listen to). I even managed to get hold of an original copy (1951 English edition) of Fischer’s book “Reflections on Music” (published by Williams & Norgate) – an elegy to the beauty and meaning of classical music by a great teacher. While Fischer’s rendering of Bach’s concertos may not be “historically accurate”, I feel that it is emotionally accurate. Also, there are many different recordings and interpretations of these great texts out there and it’s good to be able to enjoy, and choose amongst, both historically informed and more liberal performances.
Over the last 15 or so years, I’ve also composed a few pieces of my own, the most salient being a “Full Circle in E Minor” (1st performance: 2004, Bournemouth University Lunchtime Concert) which in 2010 I was thrilled to play – amongst distinguished company – at the grand piano of the Great Hall at Schloss Leopoldksron during my visit at the Salzburg Academy on Media & Global Change (thanks to Qater al Nada for the photo below).
