Student Masterclass
A masterclass for students of NEPTA teachers is given for the meeting on April 30, 2012. Students are chosen from the recitals and asked to participate in the masterclass.
This year's teacher will be Konstantinow Papadakis .
Born in Heraklion, Crete, Greece, KONSTANTINOS PAPADAKIS has been described by the press as “one of the ….greatest hopes of music” as well as a “spontaneous, honest artist”.
Konstantinos has performed in recitals and collaborated with chamber ensembles and orchestras in the world’s major concert halls and famous artistic centers from Russia and Southern Europe to the United States and Canada. He has recorded several works especially written for him by contemporary composers, many of which have been broadcast on radio and television.
He has won several prizes and distinctions at international piano competitions, including the prestigious Yannis Vardinoyannis Award, given for the first time to a pianist, as well as the Esther & Albert Kahn Award. Other major appearances include Wigmore Hall, Jordan Hall, the Athens Concert Hall, New York’s Carnegie Hall and St. Petersburg’s Grand Concert Hall, where he performed in world premieres of works by Greek and Russian contemporary composers.
Noted both for his versatility and his artistic depth and maturity, he performs repertoire that stretches from Scarlatti through the Romantics, continuing through Bartok and Stravinsky to more contemporary composers such as Ligeti and Crumb. Equally at home performing Bach’s English Suites or Ligeti’s Etudes for Piano, he possesses an unusually broad repertoire, including some 70 concertos and over 300 works for solo piano, not to mention numerous chamber works.
In 2008-2009 Konstantinos finished recording Theodore Antoniou’s complete piano works for NAXOS, and selected sonatas of Domenico Scarlatti. He also recorded 40 works by Greek composers at RIK, many of them world premieres, and subsequently appeared with the Symphonic Orchestra of Cyprus performing Solon Michaelide's Piano Concerto. In 2011, the bicentennial year of Franz Liszt's birth, Konstantinos is planning to record and produce 23 miniature masterpieces entitled, "The Short Liszt".
Konstantinos studied at the Hellenic Conservatory of Crete with Vilma Antonakaki; a year later, having already won the first prize at the Panhellenic Competition (including a Special Distinction for his own composition), he debuted as soloist in many performances showing his special musical and pianistic skills. He subsequently received a fellowship at the Hellenic Conservatory of Athens, where he studied with Costis Gaetanos, and he graduated with a First Prize Golden Medal for excellence (a superior distinction awarded for the first time to a pianist).
An alumnus of Boston University's College of Fine Arts, Konstantinos studied with Anthony diBonaventura and received an Artist Diploma in Piano Performance. At his graduation in May of 2000, he was honored with the Esther & Albert Kahn Award and was invited to join Boston University's piano faculty where he remained for several years. In addition to repeated solo appearances with Boston's Atlantic Symphony Orchestra, Konstantinos holds the prestigious Motoko and Gordon Deane Principal Chair as the Orchestra's pianist. In 2006 Konstantinos was named as the “Samuel Barber Artist-in-Residence” at West Chester University in West Chester, Pennsylvania. After a series of successful recitals of Samuel Barber's piano works for the centennial anniversary in 2010, Konstantinos has embarked this year on an ambitious cycle of recitals to celebrate the bicentennial of Franz Liszt's birth.