MIECZYSLAW SZLEZER- Violin 12-22 July Krakov Music Academy (POL)
Mieczyslaw Szlezer was born July 26. 1955 in Krakow, Poland.He has started his musical education at age six under the tutorship of hisfather Zbigniew, renowned violinist and teacher himself. He was graduated with honors from the Academy of Music in Krakow and continued his postgraduate studies at "Indiana University School of Music" in Bloomington, Indiana (USA) with Joseph Gingold and Tadeusz Wronski. Among his teachers were also such famous violinists like Henryk Szeryng and Franco Gulli. He is a multiple laureate of international and national Violin competitions. As a soloist, member of chamber ensembles and concertmaster of theorchestras "Capella Cracoviensis" (1978-87) and "The State Philharmonic Orchestra K.Szymanowski"" (1987-2000) he has given over a thousand performances in more than 30 countries on four continents. He did also numerous recordings for:"PRiTV", "RAI", "Yugoton", "France Musique", "Equant", „STEBO”, „Amadeus-Records”, ”Oko-Art” and "Moderato". Since 1995 he is a founding member of the Piano Trio "Artemus".His teaching career started in 1978 at the Academy of Music in Krakow where he is now holding the titular professorship in Violin and Chamber Music and a Chair of the Violin and Viola Department. Between 1996 and 2008 he was entrusted duties, respectively the Dean of the Instrumental Faculty and the Deputy Rector in charge of the International affairs.
ZLATKA ZLATEVA-violin 12-22 July Municipal Conservatory of Kavala
Zlatka Zlateva was born in Pleven, Bulgaria. She began violin lessons at the State Conservatory with Iovka Iordanova, who later became a teacher of gifted children at a conservatory in Moscow. At the age of 15 she made her first concerto appearance with the State Orchestra of Pleven. In 1974 she completed her secondary music education with the highest marks and, following a competition, she was admitted to the “P. Vladigerov” National Academy of Music in Sofia. For her excellent marks she was awarded a state scholarship and, following an audition, she was admitted to the two-year postgraduate program in violin and chamber music.
From 1980 until 1988 she taught at the State Conservatory of Varna as a professor of violin and chamber music. During this period, she gave many concerts with the “Varna” Trio (violin, flute and piano) in various cities of Bulgaria and abroad (Italy and Czech Republic).
In 1988 she was invited to teach violin at the Synchrono Conservatory of Thessaloniki. She has worked as a concertmaster of the Greek Radio-Television 3 Orchestra and a member of the Thessaloniki City Symphony Orchestra. She has taught at many master classes and given recitals all over Greece. Talented students from her class regularly receive prizes and awards in competitions or pursued graduate and postgraduate studies in Greek or foreign universities music academies. She teaches violin at the Municipal Conservatory of Kavala.
PAOLA ZANNONI-cello -Jazz ensembles 17-22 July Conservatorio di Verona (IT)
Paola Zannoni graduated in the cello at the Conservatory of Milan and in the recorder at the Royal College of Music in London. For many years she performed in the field of Early Music (playing recorder and baroque cello) and also specialized in music pedagogy and the production of musical events with and for children. At the same time she pursued her interest in jazz and improvisation, studying with Salvatore Maiore, Vincent Cortois, Erik Friedlander and Roberto Rossi and obtaining an advanced diploma in cello jazz at the Conservatory of Verona. Today she plays in various ensembles (latin jazz, groups with voice, with guitar, etc.), conducts string orchestra projects in primary schools and holds courses of improvisation in various music schools (conservatories and other public schools). She has held workshops on the subject of “first steps in jazz for strings” and has been invited to the Hochschule für Musik und darstellende Kunste in Mannheim (D). She teaches at the Conservatories of Mantova and Verona. The course proposes an initial approach to improvisation and jazz with the cello and other string instruments. There will be an introduction to the use of chords and the more simple structures, such blues and certain aspects of modal jazz and to a different use of the instrument (walking bass, chords, etc.). At the end of the course some arrangements of standards and blues for string ensemble will be performed.
ANGELOS FILIPPOU-cello 12-22 July Artistic Dierctor Municipal Conservatory of Drama(GR)
Maestro Angelos Filippou, son of maestro Dimitris Filippou, has made numerous recordings and possesses a rich repertoire, covering a wide spectrum of works from the Baroque to the present day. He has also made recordings and live concert broadcasts for radio-television stations in Sofia, Tokyo, Moscow, Leningrad, Berlin and Vienna.Born in Thessaloniki, he studied at the Sofia Music Academy and graduated as a solo cellist. He later studied conducting with Vladi Simeonov and Emil Ianev.From 1968 until 1980 he gave many chamber music concerts with Maya Patroneva, professor of the Sofia Music Academy. From 1981 to 1984 he taught at the Department of Orchestral Conducting at the Sofia Music Academy, and since 1985 he has been Director of the Sofia National Orchestra.Since 1991, when he returned to Greece, he works as a cello instructor and conductor of student orchestras at major conservatories of Northern Greece, such as the New Conservatory of Thessaloniki, the Municipal Conservatory of Kavala, the Northern Greece Conservatory, the Municipal Conservatory of Thermi, the Municipal Conservatory of Ampelokipi and the Conservatory of Sykies. He is the founder and artistic director of the Municipal Conservatory of Drama.He has given master classes in cello and orchestral conducting in Porto Carras, Kavala and Thessaloniki, and has served as an adjudicator in the “Papaioannou” Festival International Mozart Competition.His students have won first prizes in Greece and abroad, and have continued their studies in London, at the Trinity College of Music and the Royal College of Music
DIMITRA KATIONI -violin 12-22 July Municipal Conservatory of A.Paulos
Dimitra Kationi was born in Kavala (1983). She studied the violin and the viola with Irina Dragneva, Roussi Dragnev and Chara Seira. She is a violin and viola teacher in Thessaloniki and Polykastro Kilkis. Along with her pupils, she has founded the string ensemble Spira Minore. Her teaching is based on the Colourstrings method, as taught to her by Géza Szilvay. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Law (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki), as well as a Master’s degree in the same faculty.
EVANGELOS PAPADIMITRIS-violin 12-22 July Municipal Conservatory of Kavala
Violinist Evangelos Papadimitris began his soloist activity at the age of 16 and a year later he was called by the Albanian Radio & Television to record works by contemporary composers. Since then, he has collaborated regularly with orchestras in Greece and abroad in the most important concertos of the repertoire, and he also makes frequent public appearances as a recitalist or chamber musician, performing works that cover a wide period from the Baroque until the late 20th century.
He studied at the School of Fine Arts and at the Tirana Academy of Arts, graduating with the title of “Violinist”. He then pursued postgraduate studies in Italy, first at the “Giuseppe Verdi” Conservatory of Turin and subsequently at the Academy of Biella, with professors B. Landi and C. Romano.
From 1981 until 1992 he was Head of the Violin Department at the Tirana Academy of Arts. In 1992 he came to Greece and for 4 years (1992-96) he worked the concertmaster of the Thessaloniki City Symphony Orchestra, concurrently teaching violin at the New Conservatory of Thessaloniki. In 1993 he joined the first violin section of the Thessaloniki State Symphony Orchestra, where he continues to play.
His pedagogical work has received international recognition in competitions and congresses. For two consecutive years (1995 and 1996) he was invited to represent Greece at the “Rodolfo Lipizer” International Violin Congress in Goritzia (Italy), where he presented essays on various issues of pedagogy and analysis. His first solo CD features works by contemporary Greek composers.
MICHAEL FLASKMAN-cello 12-17 July Mannheim Musikhochschule(GER)
Michael Flaksman was born 1946 in Akron, Ohio, USA. He received his first violoncellistic training with Ernst Silberstein, principal cello of the Cleveland Orchestra, then with Casals disciple Maurice Eisenberg and finally with Antonio Janigro in Salzburg and Stuttgart. He participated repeatedly in master classes with Leonard Rose and Josef Gingold (chamber music) at “Meadowmount”, the summer school of Ivan Galamian. Still in his teens, he was a scholarship winner at the Boston Symphony “Tanglewood” Festival, which permitted him to play under the direction of Erich Leinsdorf and Seiji Ozawa. While there, he also played in the Tanglewood Ensemble for New Music under the direction of Gunther Schuller and Iannis Xenakis. At Harvard University he pursued musical studies with Luise Vosgerchian and Leon Kirchner, among others. He organized and participated in chamber music performances with fellow students Ursula Oppens, James Oliver Buswell, Seth Carlin and Tyson Street. He then served as principal cellist of the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra under Henryk Swoboda. After a period of studying in Paris with Nadia Boulanger (harmony and composition) and Paul Tortelier (cello), and playing in the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, in 1969 he received the Bachelor of Arts degree at Harvard University. At the “Marlboro” Festival Flaksman played chamber music with Rudolf Serkin, Felix Galimir, and with members of the Budapest and Guarneri Quartets. In addition, he participated in Pablo Casals’ master classes and recording sessions of Bach and Beethoven. Flaksman played as a section member and as principal cello in the orchestras of the National Arts Centre, Ottawa, Hamilton Philharmonic and the Lakehead Symphony (Canada), in the Berne and Basle Symphony and Opera Orchestras as well as in the Chamber Ensemble Radio Berne (Switzerland), in the Württemberg Chamber Orchestra (Germany) and in the Camerata Academica of Salzburg (Austria). In Canada, he was a member of “The Revolutionary Bow” – a string quartet that performed crossover as well as classical concerts and toured Canada with non-classical musicians. A Fulbright scholarship enabled him to continue his postgraduate studies with Antonio Janigro, first in Düsseldorf, then at the Salzburg Mozarteum (in addition to chamber music lessons with Sándor Végh) and finally at the Musikhochschule in Stuttgart. Flaksman worked as Janigro’s assistant in Stuttgart and Salzburg. Since 1975 he has given innumerable international master classes and has also accepted many guest professorships at various institutions and places: “Mozarteum” International Summer Academy, Chopin Academy in Warsaw, Oberlin College, Padua, Bari, Danzig, Seoul, Taipei et al. In 1978 he founded the “Carl Flesch Courses” in Baden-Baden. Today he is Artistic Director of two festivals in Italy: the “Carl Orff Festival” in Apulia and the “Ascoli Piceno Festival” in Ascoli Piceno, Marche. From 1980 to 1990 Flaksman taught the autonomous cello master class at the Conservatory of Schaffhausen (Switzerland). Simultaneously he taught as Professor at California State University in Fresno. In 1987 he transferred from California to the Stuttgart Musikhochschule to replace Professor Antonio Janigro, who retired for reasons of health. Since October 1991 he is tenured Professor at the Mannheim Musikhochschule (University of Music and Performing Arts) in Germany. He was Vice President of the Hochschule for four terms of office, from September 1999 until August 2010, after serving several years as Head of Strings. As an administrator with fluency in several languages, he supervised the creation and development of foreign relations for the Mannheim Hochschule, creating a network of about 20 European institutions. He is active as a concert cellist in Western and Eastern Europe, and in the Far East. A prizewinner in international competitions in New York (Rockefeller), Barcelona (Casals), Bologna (Accademia Filarmonica), Michael Flaksman he has had the good fortune to perform with great musicians of the previous generation (Végh, Serkin, Zsigmondy, Alberto Lysy, Jean Fournier) and of the present (K. Bogino, V. Mendelssohn, A. Weiss, J. Menuhin, etc.). His CD productions have included the Six Suites of J. S. Bach, the complete works of Gabriel Fauré for cello and piano, as well as works by Schumann, Mendelssohn, Pergolesi and others, in addition to works for cello and orchestra composed for him (e.g., Klaus Cornell’s “Der Weinstock” or Jack Fortner’s “Concertpiece”).
CHRISTOS KOZALLIS -cello 12-22July Municipal Conservatory of Kavala (GR)
Cellist Christos Kozalis was born in Thessaloniki. He began taking cello lessons at the Makedoniko Conservatory of Thessaloniki with Damianos Kailoglou. Three years later he continued his studies at the Polyaneion Conservatory of Kilkis and then at the Music College of Thessaloniki, with Zoran Stepic.In 2003 he was admitted to Dimitris Patras’ class at the State Conservatory of Thessaloniki and in June 2009 he graduated with the Diploma (highest mark by unanimous decision). He is also a graduate of the School of Business Management and Administration of the University of Makedonia. Currently, he pursues further studies in cello at the School of Musical Science and Art of the same university, with professor Dimitris Patras.He has attended cello master classes with Xenia Jankovic, as well as chamber music and orchestral seminars. He has given recitals and chamber music concerts all over Greece, and has played in concerts as a special member of the Thessaloniki City Symphony Orchestra.In May 2012 he won 1st prize at the chamber music competition of the University of Makedonia. In December 2012 he was elected a member of the Board of the Thessaloniki Conservatories Graduate Society.He has worked at the Florina Prefecture Conservatory and the Philippos Nakas Conservatory. Since September 2010 he teaches cello at the Friends of Letters and Arts Society of Serres and at the Municipal Conservatory of Kavala, where he also conducts the Chamber Orchestra.