Ioannou / Vafeas Jazz Quartet: Bridge of Locks

The Pharos Arts Foundation presents the Ioannou / Vafeas Jazz Quartet in BRIDGE OF LOCKS – a unique journey into jazz with the sounds of award-winning saxophonist and composer Chris Byars. The concert is a preview of the Quartet’s CD, Bridge of Locks, which will be released later in the year. Friday 10 March 2017 at The Shoe Factory, Nicosia / 8:30pm.

THE IOANNOU / VAFEAS JAZZ QUARTET
The Ioannou / Vafeas Jazz Quartet was created in 2016 after many years of collaboration and friendship between saxophonist Charis Ioannou and drummer Ioannis Vafeas. Both artists perform regularly in festivals and concert halls in their homeland Cyprus as well as the rest of Europe, and they have frequently collaborated in recordings and theatre productions. They are both graduates of the Berklee College of Music in Boston, holding a Master’s Degree in Jazz Music, and they are professors in the in the Department of Music at the University of Nicosia.

Charis Ioannou / saxophone
Charis Ioannou studied Saxophone Performance and Jazz Composition at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. In the last year of his studies in Boston, he won the Woodwind Achievement Award, and in 2001, he moved to New York where he earned his Master’s Degree in Performance from the New York University. He has since appeared in all the major jazz clubs and festivals around Cyprus, as well as many countries abroad including, Greece, Kuwait, Germany, Lebanon, Kazakhstan, Poland, Serbia, Spain, England, Italy, Luxembourg, Belgium, Holland and the US. Charis has collaborated with the American Embassy in Cyprus for the Bi-Communal Jazz programme “Jazz Futures” performing alongside the group of Ari Roland and Chris Byars for 6 years during the period 2007-2013. In 2015, he led BopCy, a quartet with all Cypriot musicians and won the 2nd place in the first Greek Jazz Competition. Charis is currently teaching the saxophone and the jazz idiom at the University of Nicosia and is making guest faculty appearances in workshops held in Italy, Lebanon and Greece.

Ioannis Vafeas / drums
Ioannis Vafeas studied Jazz at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. He followed his studies with a Master’s Degree in Jazz Studies at the Boston Conservatory – his thesis being focused on the “Rhythm, History, Development and Influence on the 20th Century Music”. He has appeared in festivals and concert halls all over Europe. Distinguished by a very personal style and technique, Vafeas started his career performing music of different styles such as pop, funk and ethnic, and having participated in numerous CDs, theatre productions and films, before dedicating himself solely to jazz, in 2003. Along with fellow musicians he formed several jazz bands, such as the Café Balkan and the Cyprus Big Band, and he appeared in festivals all over the world having shared the stage with renowned ensembles and orchestras including the Moscow Symphony Orchestra. Since 2009, he is teaching at the University of Nicosia.

Greg Makamian / double-bass
Greg Makamian has performed next to the legendary Freddie Redd at Smalls in NYC, and he has collaborated with renowned musicians including Chris Byars, Pasquale Grasso, Zaid Nasser, Pete & Will Anderson, Keith Balla, Phil Stewart, Ofer Landsberg, Stefano Doglioni, John Mosca. Recently, he has appeared with the Cyprus Symphony Orchestra and the Charis Ioannou Group, presenting the music of Charlie Parker-Bird with Strings. As the bandleader of Mood Indigo, Greg has organized public concerts all around Cyprus, presenting the finest Cypriot Jazz musicians and he has performed at small Jazz Club (NY), Fat Cat (NY), Garage (NY), Apollon Theater (Syros, GR), The Aphrodite Hills Jazz Festival (CY), Pomos Jazz festival (CY), amongst others. Inspired by bassist/composers such as Oscar Pettiford and Ari Roland, Greg has been lately working on a publication of his original compositions.

Dimitris Miaris / piano
Born in 1991, Dimitris Miaris started classical piano lessons at the age of 6. He had his first contact with jazz music at the age of 16 through the “Jazz Futures” workshops by renowned musicians such as Sacha Perry, Vahagn Hayrapetyan, Ari Roland and Chris Byars. Since then he took part in almost all the “Jazz Futures” workshops and in the last two years he participated in Dr. Barry Harris’ workshops in Rome. Dimitris is a member of the Greek traditional band “Neorebetes”, where he plays the accordion and he has appeared with the band in Cyprus, Greece, Kazan (Russia), Sydney and Melbourne (Australia). Dimitris Miaris studied Jazz Piano at the Jazz Department of the Ionian University, under the instruction of George Kontrafouris, and received his Bachelor Degree in 2009.

Tickets:
€15 / €10 Concessions & members of the Pharos Arts Foundation,
Box Office: Directly from the Foundation’s website www.pharosartsfoundation.org/Tickets_online.htm or Tel. 9666-9003 (Monday - Friday 10:00am-3:00pm)