4th Piano Conference: “Frédéric Chopin’s Pedagogy” – Yannis Grigorakis, Grigorios Zamparas, Stefanos Theodoridis
Yannis Grigorakis has been the director of the Primary School of the ‘Holy Metropolis of Piraeus’ School, where he teaches music at the Primary school and High school and also conducts the school Choir. He has taught Music Theory (beginners and advanced levels) from 1989 to 2014, he has worked as a choir conductor at the Youth and Children’s Choir at the Municipal Conservatory of Lamia and has led Masterclasses at the International Porto Heli Festival Supporting Culture & the Arts. Since 2014 he has been teaching music and conducting the children choir at the multi-cultural centre for Sports, Arts and Pre-school Care Center in Elefsina. He holds a Bachelor of Arts (Magna Cum Laude) from the University of Indianapolis (USA) with a specialty in Choir Conducting, as well as a Doctorate in Musicology from the New Bulgarian University. He has a Piano degree from the Synchrono Conservatory of Athens (under Yorgos Manessis) and holds a diploma in classical singing (tenor voice) from the Kodaly Conservatory, under the guidance of Ch. Yannakopoulou. He is president of the OM.E.DI.PO. association and Director of the International Portoheli Festival Supporting Culture & the Arts.
Grigorios Zamparas has received rave reviews for his performances in recitals, chamber music concerts and orchestral concerts in Greece, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Russia, Latin America, South Korea and the United States. He frequently appears in various festivals around the world, such as the famous Newport Music Festival (Rhode Island, USA), Mainly Mozart Festival (Miami, USA), Artist Series of Sarasota (USA), Salon of the Arts (Sofia, Bulgaria), the International Portoheli Festival e.t.c. Furthermore, he has appeared as a soloist in more than twenty different piano concertos, with orchestras such as the Porto Alegre Symphony Orchestra (Brazil), the Indiana University Symphony Orchestra, the Boston Neo-Politan Chamber Orchestra, the Togliati Philharmonic (Russia), the Sofia Soloists (Bulgaria) and the Bohuslav Martinu Philharmonic Orchestra (Czech Republic). He is an assistant professor of music and head of the piano department at the University of Tampa in the United States, as well as member of the Quartet de Minaret, a piano quartet based at the same university. In the academic year 2010-2011 he received the Outstanding Scholarship or Creative Work Award. Grigorios Zamparas started studying piano at the age of seven, while he received his piano diploma from the Lamia Conservatory in 1995 with the distinguished Greek teacher Yorgos Manessis. He holds a DMA from the University of Miami where he studied with Ivan Davis, a student of Vladimir Horowitz. He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Indiana (MM), the University of Indianapolis (BM) and the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. Since 1993 he has appeared continuously at the International Portoheli Festival where he has performed more than 300 works. Recently, the American label Centaur Records released G. Zambara’s recordings of the five Piano Concertos of the Russian composer Anton Rubinstein.
Stefanos Theodoridis studied piano with Yorgos Manessis with whom he obtained his Diploma with Top Honors and 1st Prize. He has also studied translation in the Hellenic-American Union. He is the translator in greek of “Glenn Gould: Reflections on Music” (Nefeli, 2012) and “Chopin as seen by his students” (Edition Orpheus, 2023), while he conducts research on piano pedagogy. He has given speeches and participated in radio shows about Fr. Chopin, G. Gould etc. He is the secretary of the International Porto Heli Festival Supporting Culture & The Arts.