Composers from Greece

Piano, Fortepiano and Harpsichord Music
Post Reply
nikolas

Composers from Greece

Post by nikolas »

Hello all.

I'm Greek and a composer and a publisher. After discussing various issues with mballan, in order to avoid any breaking of the rules... here I am...

I will be discussing in different threads a few living Greek composers, along with youtube examples, and parts of their published scores. So... well... let's go then!
nikolas

Re: Composers from Greece

Post by nikolas »

Nikolas Sideris

That would be me then... ;)

My bio is offered directly from the publishers website, and is on quotes...
Nikolas Sideris was born in Athens, Greece in 1977. He has been studying music since the age of 5, and holds a PhD in Composition from Royal Holloway, University of London. He received his Masters in Composition from the same university in 2005 with distinction and he also has a diploma in Piano with honors, and degrees in Harmony, Counterpoint and Fugue. His studies in the UK were funded by the National Scholarship Foundation of Greece (IKY).

Nikolas, as a pianist has performed in concerts all over Greece, in cities such as Athens, Ag. Paraskevi, Holargos, and Ioannina, and has also appeared in Damascus, Syria.

His works have been performed in the UK, USA, Germany and Greece and range from small works for solo instruments, to large works for string orchestras. His work for string orchestra (6-6-5-5-2) Exeliksis won the first prize in the Royal Holloway Composition Competition in 2005 and was performed live the next year in Egham, UK. He's received commissions by orchestras and soloists from around the world and his work The City Under Different Eyes for Solo Piano and Audio Manipulation was featured in an adaptive audio playback software system.

He is also active in the computer games industry, as a composer and sound designer and recently the game that he scored, Privates by Size Five Games won a BAFTA for best Educational - Secondary Game. He co-owns North by Sound, an Audio Production company based in Norway and Greece.

He is a loving husband and father of two.
As a pianist, myself (though with great lack of practice over the past decade or so...), I've been composing regularly for piano, solo or other. Actually I'm in the process of composing a piano concerto but don't tell anyone! :P

So, quite a few of my works are for solo piano, or piano 4 hands. Following are a list of these works, some descriptions, youtube videos, and attached in the post you'll find some examples, and parts of the published scores!

Sketch Music

This score is commercially available and not for free, but attached you'll find the first few pages for free.

Is a collection of easy to intermediate works for solo piano, created mostly for educational reasons. As a piano teacher (and a composer) I was simply bothered by the lack of the material I would like to use. My students reacted greatly to these short works, and... well... here we are!

Last year, Luke Bartolomeo of "Repertoire Review" offered a great (and favorable... heh...) review of the work, which can be found HERE

I'm including 3 youtube videos of 10 of the 21 works available in youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeTFz-6G-SY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tMBOVFIMx8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SEw9lS2pBM

Piano Stories, For piano, 4 hands

This score is commercially available, but attached you'll find the first work titled "If only he was carefree", which, btw, is NOT currently available in youtube.

This is my most recent output for the piano, even if it's for 4 hands.

A series of 7 movements (or works... One could potentially perform them separately or together) that were composed over a period of around 15 years... Some themes date back to the late 90s, while others are as fresh as 2012 is... The difficulty is rather more advanced than Sketch Music but if I'm allowed to say that for myself, I do think that it's the most catchy tunes I've composed as far as classical music is concerned.

Following is a youtube playlist with 5 out of the 7 movements: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsdvCIwm ... xZBi78_7ar

One special note should be made here. As I realized that a duet may not be able to practice as much as they'd like (especially if we're talking about teacher-student) I've made available all the solo parts of the duets, as mp3 files, along with an ugly metronome in the beginning of each work, for reference. While not works of art on their own, they should serve their purpose I think...

Perniciosus

Finally, my largest piano work to date (or until the concerto comes along, which won't be solo though)...

This score is commercially available, but attached you'll get a few various pages from the score (since the score changes a lot throughout).

This is a fierce work. Very difficult, very exciting (I'd like to think) for the pianist and the audience. A worthy concert hall work, as I've been told... Bulgarian pianist, Kristian Banatzianou recorded it around 2007 or 2008 and the recording of the whole work, with the score to follow is available in youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grGh-U26Db4

All the works listed above are sold commercially through the website of the published at http://www.musica-ferrum.com
Sketch Music Nikolas Sideris pages 1-6.pdf
Piano Stories Nikolas Sideris page 1-7.pdf
Perniciosus Nikolas Sideris various pages.pdf
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
Last edited by nikolas on Thu Feb 14, 2013 5:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.
nikolas

Re: Composers from Greece

Post by nikolas »

Now, as to not get confused with the above published works...

I've done a number of works, for educational reasons mostly, that are available for free... I've also made a thread in the 21st century composers forum with all these works attached... I'll just link it there and leave it at that: viewtopic.php?f=44&t=930
nikolas

Re: Composers from Greece

Post by nikolas »

Christos Sp. Anastassiou

Christos Anastassiou is a great Greek composer, who got his works published recently. He's also a friend of mine and my teacher. :)

Following is his biography, from the website:
Christos Sp. Anastassiou was born in Athens, where he studied and got degrees in harmony, counterpoint, orchestration and fugue. He also studied the art of conducting with Lefteris Halkiadakis. He carried on studying composition with Theodoros Antoniou with whom he got a diploma in composition and orchestra conducting. He has participated in a number of seminars about contemporary concert hall music in Greece and Abroad. His studies in composition, analysis and conducting were concluded in the university of Belgrade with Professors Srdjan Hofman, Zoran Eric΄ and Raiko Maksimovic΄ with whom he got a Masters of Arts in 1997.

He has been honoured in several competitions, like being a finalist of the "ALEA II" International Competition of Composition of the University of Boston, with his work Anakyklisis, finalist in the final of the "OLYMPIA" International Competition of Composition in Athens, with his work Nomos for string quartet, finalist in the 3rd Festival of contemporary music of Belgrade with his work Variations for solo guitar and finalist of the "Taukay" International Competition of Composition in Italy, with his work Anima Mundi for electronic media.

As a composer he has composed for a wide variety of media (more than 60 works), including solo, chamber orchestra, symphonic orchestra, string quartets, works for voice, choral music, music for the theatre and television and works for electronic media.

His works have been performed by important ensembles of the international contemporary music scene. Many of his works are commissioned by musical organizations and institutions in Greece and abroad (ALEA III, Taukai Edizioni Musicali, Megaron of Athens, etc).

Currently he lives in Athens. He is Professor of Composition and director of studies in various Conservatories in Athens. He has also repeatedly lectured and taught in seminars on the music of the 20th century.

Since 1994 he has been a member of the Greek "Composers Union".
On a more personal note, I'd say that his output is usually quite demanding from the performers...

He's currently published 2 works for solo piano, both very difficult, long (more than 10 minutes each one), and very satisfying to perform. I played his Intermezzo in my final exams as a pianist in 2001!

Intermezzo

This work is commercially available only, but attached you'll find a few pages of the score.

This is a 15 minute long work. Almost charming, although it starts with some thundering seconds on the piano. It's tonal in a sense (with an obsession in C I'd say), and offers the pianist the chance to play inside the piano, hit the notes, stop them, create harmonics (with the use of the sympathetique resonance), etc... I'd say that technically it's not as demanding as other works in the piano repertoire, but reading it is very difficult on its own.

Here's a youtube video with the whole world, performed by Bulgarian pianist and composer Borislava Taneva:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hk-FjRbyhd8

Paravasis

This work is commercially available only, but attached you'll find a few pages of the score.

This is his latest work, composed in 2012, I believe. It's not yet performed by anyone, in a studio or a live situation. Anyone interested?

Paravasis is a Greek word meaning "The act of breaking the law". I'm not too sure on why he wrote this work, but I do remember that he has a series of works in a similar fashion, for other instruments, so...

This is a monumental work. At 40 pages multiple techniques of piano playing are explored to their full range. While, again, not devilishly difficult from a technical point of view, the musicality required and the the sight reading abilities are something that take some pondering I think! Still, having heard the work through digital means (Sibelius) I'd say that it's one work that I'd like to have on a CD to listen to... :)

Attached are a few page from the beginning and the end of the work... To provide some idea of what the score looks like.

No youtube video for this one I'm afraid...

All the works listed above are sold commercially through the website of the published at http://www.musica-ferrum.com
paravasis Christos Anastassiou various pages.pdf
Intermezzo Christos Anastassiou pages 1-8.pdf
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
Last edited by nikolas on Thu Feb 14, 2013 5:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.
nikolas

Re: Composers from Greece

Post by nikolas »

Nikos Drelas

Nikos is the third Greek composer to join our publishing house... He has an extensive output, for many different ensembles, and is not a pianist, so his piano output is somewhat limited. Still he's composed a piano duo which is available in youtube (and the score is commercially sold), and some etudes for solo piano, which are more than interesting, but unfortunately are published by a different music house, and there are no links to offer I'm afraid...

He's also done an amazing work for choir (but this is not Choirphilia, so... :P).

Following is his bio, directly from the website:
Nikos Drelas was born in Athens in 1958.

From 1977 up to 1982 he lived in Thessalonica, Greece studying Mathematics at the local University and Harmony with Yiannis Mantakas at the "Neo Odeio" Conservatorium.

He took classes in Counterpoint and Composition from Michalis Travlos at the Nikos Skalkotas School of music in Athens and in 1984 he commenced his studies at the department of Composition of "Hochschule der Künste - Berlin" under Witold Szalonek while he also attended seminars in Conducting from Friedrich Goldmann.

His music has been performed in Greece and abroad and he's participated in "Gaudeamus International Music Days" in Amsterdam with his work Strophes for mixed choir. The same work was selected to represent Greece at the "Music Days" of ISCM.

He was granted a studendship by the "Moysigetis" society, whereas the Department of Culture of the then West Berlin granted him a scholarship in the form of a commission for a composition.

He's also participated in the "Conferenza Musicale Mediteranea – Palermo" with his work Thetia for 4 voices, guitar, percussion and piano.

His compositions hold elements of traditional music due to his experiential relationship with it. Pitch material, melodic fragments, rhythms and gestures in his compositions can reveal this relationship, although not in an apparent way.

He lives and works as a teacher and a composer in Athens since 1991.
The past strikes again, for piano duet

This score is available for sale commercially, though almost half the piece is attached as an example bellow.

This is his piano duet. Since I'm Greek I can definitely sense a very Greek aesthetic in his output. Of medium to advanced difficult for both pianists, the point in this case is the exact timing of both pianists...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mg9DREp8-6s

EDIT: Duh! Forgot to put the part of the work as attached... brr... Sorry about that...
The past strikes again Nikos Drelas pages 1-7.pdf
All the works listed above are sold commercially through the website of the published at http://www.musica-ferrum.com
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
Last edited by nikolas on Thu Feb 14, 2013 5:57 pm, edited 2 times in total.
User avatar
mballan
Site Owner
Posts: 2419
Joined: Fri Sep 04, 2009 12:35 pm
Instruments played, if any: Piano
Music Scores: Yes
Location: Cornwall, England

Re: Composers from Greece

Post by mballan »

Nikolas

You have been busy and an excellent introduction to current Greek composers including yourself. Many thanks for undertaking this task and I'm sure will be of interest to many members. The only change I've made is to post the scores so that they will be picked up in any site searches [basically after uploading, position your curser where you want the score and click the 'post online' button.

Many thanks again - much to digest, and must admit a new area for me.

Malcolm
nikolas

Re: Composers from Greece

Post by nikolas »

Thank you Malcolm,

I was very happy to offer some insights... In the next few months more Greek composers will join Editions Musica Ferrum so I will have more to post from that side. Apart from that, if there's any free score wondering around, I will be happy (of course) to share it.

And I should be getting more info (little by little), for other Greek composers (Christou, Sicilianos, Konstandinidis), whose works while, again, not free, or available with no copyrights, do have great interest I think. The "main problem" with any Greek composer is that they're all under copyrights for several more years... The Greeks lack of education in classical music, has made it so that only recently there's any serious output. Even the likes of Skalkotas (who is considered a rather main composer), are still under copyright and under treated I'm afraid... :(

Again thanks for everything! :)
bingo
Site Admin
Posts: 534
Joined: Sat Aug 22, 2020 11:57 pm
Instruments played, if any: piano
Music Scores: Yes

Re: Composers from Greece

Post by bingo »

Vale Mikis Theodorakis (1925-1921)

According to Schott,his piano oeuvre comprises:

Piano
Passacailles
Melos
Concerto No.2 for Piano and Orchestra study score
2 Popular Suites
Preludes
Suite for Piano, Winds and Percussion study score
Songs For Piano 40 Selected Pieces For Piano. Arranged By Tatiana Papageorgiou
Dances of Our Time A collection of new pieces for piano
Suite No. 1 for piano and orchestra piano reduction for 2 pianos
Zorbas Suite arranged for 4 pianos by Achilleas Wastor (2011)score and parts
Zorba's Dance Syrtaki score and parts

Two and more pianos
Passacailles
ZorbasSuite arranged for 4 pianos by Achilleas Wastor (2011) score and parts
Zorba's Dance Syrtakis core and parts

Concertante
Helikon Concerto for piano and orchestra
Concerto for Piano and Strings No. 2
Helikon Concerto for piano and string orchestra
Suite No.1 for piano and orchestra
Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 2
Enas Omiros (The Hostage / Die Geisel) suite for piano and orchestra, arranged by Dimitris Michas (2010)
Post Reply