Biography
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Born
1978 (age 46)
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Born In
Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Kentriki Makedonia, Greece
George – Emmanuel Lazaridis has been described as "An exhilarating Soloist" (Monde De La Musique, Georges Gad), "A genius at work" (Eastern Daily Press, Michael Drake), "One of the finest pianists of his generation" (Yonty Solomon) and his playing has been characterised as "special enough to be beyond comparison" (BBC Music Magazine, Adrian Jack).
Mentored by Yonty Solomon (RCM), Douglas Finch (TCM) and Domna Evnouhidou (Music College of Thessaloniki), he has also worked with Ruth Nye, Noretta Conci-Leech and Alfred Brendel. In composition, he has worked with Edwin Roxburgh (RCM) and Daryl Runswick (TCM). He has received a plethora of honorary awards and scholarships, including the prestigious Academy of Athens and the Worshipful Company of Musicians awards, the Queen Elizabeth (RCM), Cathleen Creed (TCM) the Onasis, Hattori and Levendis Foundations to name but a few.
Born in Greece and now aged 29, G.E.Lazaridis has already embarked on a flourishing international career. Since his early teens, he has appeared in prestigious venues such as the Royal Albert Hall, The Barbican, Le Corum Montpellier, the Vienna Konzerthaus, the Acropolis, Epidaurus, the Athens concert Hall and performed with leading orchestras such as the Hamburg Philharmonic, the Royal Philharmonic, the Strasbourg Philharmonic, the Warsaw Symphony, the Munich Symphony under the direction of Sir Neville Marriner, Ingo Metzmacher, Yoel Levin, Theodor Guschlbauer, Michel Tabachnik, Christopher Warren Green, William Boughton and others. He has collaborated with renowned ensembles and artists such as the Medici Quartet, the Isaye Quartet, the Vienna Octet, the BT Scottish Ensemble, the Hellenic Quartet, Leonidas Kavakos, Michael Tilson Thomas and appeared in International Festivals such as Harrogate, Athens, Montpellier, Monterrey, Istanbul, Patras, Trento, Nafplion, Norfolk & Norwich, Hampstead & Highgate, Demetria, the Chopin International Festival in Warsaw, the Springboard Trust concert series in London, and many more.
The artistic committee of the European Concert Halls Organization (ECHO) selected George -Emmanuel Lazaridis as a Rising Star for the 2006/07 season, a distinction which took him on a long world tour with recitals in Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, London’s Barbican, Athens’ Megaron, New York’s Carnegie Hall, Brussels’ Palais des Beaux Arts, Salzburg’s Mozarteum, Paris’ Cite De La Musique, Baden Baden’s Festspielhaus, Vienna’s Konzerthaus, Cologne’s Philharmonie, Stockholm’s Konserthuset and more. This series of high-profile concerts received huge critical acclaim from audiences and critics alike and concluded at Birmingham’s Symphony Hall on May 6, 2007.
Other recent highly acclaimed recitals and collaborations have included the Dvorak Quintet at the Athens Concert Hall 'Great Interpreters' concert series with the Medici Quartet, the Brahms Quintet at the Athens National Opera House with the Hellenic Quartet, recitals at the Monterrei International Piano Festival, the Sala Maffeiana in Verona, Tullynally Castle in Ireland, Philomusica in Oxford, Steinway Halls in NY, Munich and London, as well as Beethoven's Triple Concerto and the Shostakovich piano concertos with the Thessaloniki State Symphony (cond. Maxim Shostakovich), Mozart's C minor Concerto and Koumendakis’ Concerto No.3 with the Athens Camerata (Sir Neville Marriner, Alexander Myrat, Christopher Warren Green), Beethoven’s ‘Emperor’ with the Athens State Symphony, the Munich Symphony and the Royal Philharmonic (Georg Schmohe, William Boughton), performances of Poulenc, Mozart and Bach concertos for two pianos with Huseyin Sermet, the Orchestra of Colours and Tekfen Philharmonic at the Athens Herodion and Ayia Erene in Istanbul (Miltos Logiades, Yoel Levin), a series of concerts with ADAP (Associasion of Artists for Peace) in Paris-Unesco, Luxemburg, Palais des Beaux Arts and at the CRT in Istanbul, appearances at the Epidaurus Ancient Theatre and the Acropolis (both as a soloist and as a composer), a series of concerts at the Demetria international Festival, collaborations with the Piandaemonium Ensemble, and many more. He has recently been invited to tour with the St Petersburg Symphony Orchestra and Yuri Temirkanov in Vienna, Hungary and Greece.
TSC (USA), the BBC and the Greek National Television ERT have all featured G.E.Lazaridis with special broadcast profiles and his CD release of Schumann Piano Works on the Somm label (2002) was selected by the BBC Magazine as one of their Top 10 recommendations and their ‘Pick of the Month’. Lazaridis subsequently recorded the Rachmaninov Cello/piano sonata (viola arrangement) and the Strauss violin/piano sonata with Yuri Zisslin for the same label to great critical acclaim (2005). His recent recording of Liszt’s B minor Sonata and Grandes Etudes de Paganini for Linn Records (2006) has been rapturously received, with five-star reviews from the International Press, including recommendations by Gramophone Magazine, International Piano, The Pianist, Diapason, and BBC Music magazine which also selected it as instrumental disc of the month. Immediate future recordings include a sequel CD by LINN, a recording of George Koumendaki’s piano concertos no.3 and no.4 performed with the Athens ‘Camerata’ and Christopher Warren-Green, a triple CD recording of the complete piano works of Manos Hadjidakis to be released by LYRA and a recording of Beethoven’s ‘Emperor’ with the Worthing Symphony Orchestra and John Gibbons under the auspices of EMI.
As a composer, Lazaridis has received commissions from the Greek Ministry of Culture, the Europa Cantat International Festival, The Cultural Capital of Europe 1997 Organisation, the Melina Merkouri Foundation, the New Arts Generation Festival in Birmingham, the Athens International Festival, the Piccolo Teatro - Milano Incontra Di Grecia, etc. His work "Sleepwalking", commissioned by Richard Sisson for ‘Song Book 2003’, was performed at London's Wigmore Hall and was nominated for a Sony Award. His new rhapsodic song-cycle ‘Tragic Love’, written for the legendary singer Maria Farandouri and aiming to bridge the gap between popular and classical music traditions, received its world premier at the Ancient Epidaurus Theatre in July 2008. This work is now being developed further for his PhD in Composition at the Birmingham Conservatoire. Numerous organizations have already requested further performances of this work which will shortly be recorded and available commercially.
G.E.Lazaridis has, since 2006, been co-director of the ‘Music-Village’ International Festival in Mount Pilion, with Thymios Atzakas and Kostas Makrygiannakis as distinguished collaborators.
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