Musical Encounter: 7 artists from Cyprus, Italy, Latvia, France

Works by Milhaud, Taffanel, Poulenc, Ibert, Hadjidakis

The clarinettist Orfeas Hiratos presents a programme with works of famous French composers (Darius Milhaud, Paul Taffanel, Francis Poulenc, Jacques Ibert) and an excerpt from the Gioconda's Smile by the Greek composer Manos Hadjidakis, one of the most famous and classic albums of 20th-century music in Greece. The concert will take place at Technopolis 20 in Paphos, on Tuesday, 4th of December at 8pm.

Together with Orfeas Hiratos, will also perform a wind quartet, composed of musicians from the Opera of Zurich and Lyon, Stella Ingrosso from Italy in flute, Amanda Taurina from Latvia in oboe, Stefano Riva from Italy in bassoon and Alessandro Viotti from France/ Switzerland in French Horn, as well as the Turkish Cypriot violinist Nihat Agkjak and the Cypriot pianist Manolis Neophytou.

Entrance: 12/ 10 euro
Reservations are necessary at 70002420 (calls only)
Sponsor: CTO

Programme

Darius Milhaud, Suite for Violin, clarinet and Piano Op. 157b
I. Ouverture. Vif et gai
II. Divertissement. Animé
III. Jeu. Vif
Paul Taffanel, Wind Quintet in G minor.
I. Allegro con moto
II. Andante
III. Vivace

Interval

Francis Poulenc, Sextet for Piano and Wind Quintet Op. 100
I. Allegro vivace
II. Divertissement: Andantino
III. Finale: Prestissimo
Jacques Ibert, Trois pièces brèves
I. Allegro
II. Andante
III. Assez lent - Allegro Scherzando - Vivo
Manos Hadjidakis, Gioconda's Smile
I. The Concerto
II. Countess Esterhazy

A few words about the musicians
Orfeas Hiratos was born in Limassol, Cyprus in 1992. At the age of ten he began taking clarinet lessons and soon after became a member of the city municipal band. One year later he went on studying with prof. Dusko Zarkovic. At the age of thirteen, Orfeas won a scholarship at the Music Workshop of the Cyprus Youth Symphony Orchestra and a place in the orchestra itself. In 2008 he won the Cybc competition and was chosen to represent Cyprus at the competition “Eurovision for Young Musicians” in Vienna and in September of the same year he appeared as a soloist during the Cypria International Festival with the Cyprus Youth Symphony Orchestra. In April of 2009 he performed as a soloist at the Berengaria International Music Festival. Since 2010 Orfeas has been studying at the Music Academy of Basel in Switzerland under the guidance of prof. Francois Benda where he successfully finished the degrees of Bachelor and Master in Musikpädagogik. Orfeas orchestral experience consists of participations with the European Union Youth Orchestra, the Mahler Jungendorchester, the Verbier Festival Orchestra as well as the Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra where he had the chance to perform with famous conductors as Valerie Gergiev, Zubin Mehta, Charles Dutoit, Ivan Fischer, Paavo Järvi, Herbert Blomstedt among many others. From the Seasons 2015 to 2017 Orfeas has been a member of the Academy of the Opera House Zürich. Furthermore Orfeas is regularly performing as a quest musician in other professional ensembles and orchestras as the Symphony Orchestras of Luzern and Basel.

Alessandro Viotti, born in 1993 in Switzerland, is a French/Swiss horn player. He started playing the trumpet at the age 9, and switched to the horn when he was 13. He did his studies in Lyon Conservatory and ended in 2015 in the Basel Musikhochschule with Christian Lampert. After 1 year playing in the Basel Sinfonieorchester, he entered the academy of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in Munich, the orchestra of Mariss Jansons. He played there with great conductors as Sir Simon Rattle, Bernard Haitink, Mariss Jansons, Yannick Nezet Seguin, Daniel Harding and Sir John Eliot Gardiner. He also played in Verbier Music Festival with Zubin Mehta and in the Bürgenstock Chamber Music Festival, where he played with musicians of the Berliner Philharmoniker. He also won some prizes at different horn international competitions. In 2017 he won the audition for the Lyon Opera House where he plays now as cosolist.

Amanda Tauriņa was born in Latvia, where she studied with Dainis Cimmermanis and Egils Upatnieks. Amanda came to Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK) in 2013, to study with Prof. Louise Pellerin, where she finished her Bachelor with disNncNon in 2017. Currently she is in the Master Specialized Performance Orchestra programme of the ZHdK. Amanda has won prizes in several compeNNons such as “Talent of Latvia”, “Litauras Vebra 3rd internaNonal Oboe compeNNon” (Lithuania) and Concours NaNonal d’ExécuNon Musicale 2015 (Switzerland). She has travelled and played on tours with orchestras and as a soloist in Latvia,
Slovenia, Austria, Portugal, China, MauriNus and more. “From a very young age music has fascinated me. The oboe sound is the closest to the human voice and it allows me to sing!”

Stefano Riva graduated at the “Istituto Superiore di studi musicali Gaetano Donizetti” in Bergamo, under the guidance of Giorgio Versiglia. He completed a Master with Matthias Racz at ZHdK University in Zurich and currently he is pursuing a Master in Specialised Orchestra Performance in the same institute. Stefano´s artistic professional carrier has a lot to offer with participation in orchestras and concerts at the highest level. Since January 2016 he regularly performs as bassoonist for the orchestra of Accademia Teatro alla Scala in Milan. At the same year he joined the PMF Orchestra (Pacific Music Festival) in Japan. From 2017 he is Substitute first bassoon player at the Orchestra Haydn in Bolzano and at the La Verdi Orchestra in Milan. He was Praktikant at the Musikkollegium Winterthur for the season 2017/2018. From 2018 Stefano is the substitute Co-Principal bassoonist at the MPO Orchestra (Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra) and at the Tiroler Festpiele Erl in Austria. Starting with the season 2018/2019 he is the bassoon Academist of the prestigious orchestra of the Opera House Zurich. Apart from his extended orchestra experiences Stefano, as a solo player, won the first price of the Maccagno’s competition 2012, the first price of the XXVII edition of the scholarship Lino Barbisotti (2012) as well as the third price in the competition Premio Abbado 2015.

Born in Ferrara in 1994, Stella Ingrosso began playing the flute at the age of 12 with Morena Mestieri and graduated with Honours and Distinction at the age of 17 at the “Girolamo Frescobaldi” Conservatory in Ferrara with Luciano Ravagnani. After the Bachelor degree she studied with Andrea Oliva at the Academy of “Santa Cecilia” in Rome and did her Master with Jacques Zoon at the “Haute École de Musique” in Geneva. She won first prizes in several national and international competitions as the “E. Krakamp”, the “Syrinx”, and the first international “Severino Gazzelloni” Competition. In 2017 she was Semifinalist in the "Kobe International Flute Competition" in Japan. She played with the “Luigi Cherubini” Orchestra, the “OGI" Italian Youth Orchestra, the "GMJO- Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester", the "OSR- Orchestre de la Suisse Romande" and she was Academist in the Orchestra of the "Opernhaus" in Zürich. She is currently collaborating as Solo Flute with the Orchestra of the "Teatro la Fenice" in Venice.

The violinist Nihat Agdac was born in Famagusta in 1986. He has been a member of the European Union Youth Orchestra, Orchestra Purpur, Verbier Festival Orchestra and had guest appearances with the City of Birmingham Symphony and London Symphony Orchestras. He has performed as a soloist with a number of major orchestras and has appeared at the Barbican, Royal Albert Hall, Birmingham Symphony Hall in the UK, Berlin Philharmonie, Konzerthaus, Munich, Bremen, Cologne, Hamburg, Dusseldorf Concert Halls, Frankfurt Alte Oper amongst other major venues in Germany, Vienna Musikverein, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Paris Champs-Elysess Theatre, Luxembourg Philharmonie amongst other prestigious concert halls in Europe, different venues in Moscow and Shanghai. Nihat graduated with a First Class Honours and Special Prizes from the Hacettepe University Ankara State Conservatoire and continued his studies at the Royal Academy of Music and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, under Mateja Marinkovic and Levon Chilingirian. He also received the accolades of leading artists such as Maxim Vengerov, Ani Kavafian and Thomas Brandis after performing at their masterclasses. After completing his Orchestral Artistry Masters at the Guildhall School in collaboration with the London Symphony Orchestra, he was awarded” Artist Fellowship”. Nihat is a founder member and the concertmaster of the Presidential Symphony Orchestra (Cyprus) and the bi-communal Cyprus Chamber Orchestra. He enjoys leading different ensembles where he had the chance to work with important musicians including Sir Simon Rattle.

Manolis Neophytou holds a Bachelor of Music (Honours) Degree in Performance from the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatoire, where he studied with Prof. Irina Plotnikova and Prof. Arkadii Sevidov, with a scholarship from Nicolas Economou Foundation. He also studied in Ecole Normale in Paris with a scholarship from the Albert Russel Foundation. He has obtained his Masters in Piano Performance from the University of London with a scholarship from the State Scholarships Foundation of Greece (I.K.Y.). Manolis represented Cyprus at the Eurovision Classical Contests in Brussels (1992), Warsaw (1994) and Lisbon (1996) after winning the Cyprus National Competitions for young musicians. He has received prizes in several piano competitions: the Fourth Prize at Senegallia International Piano Competition (Italy, 1994), the First Prize at the Inter-Mediterranean Music Festival (Palermo, Italy, 1995) and the Second Prize at the Giorgos Thimis Piano Competition (Megaron Mousikis of Thessaloniki, Greece, 2002). His performance activities include solo recitals and concerts in Greece, Russia, Poland, Italy, France, Ireland, U.K., Korea, South Africa and Cyprus. He is currently teaching piano at the Music Lyceum in Limassol and the European University of Cyprus.