Panagiotis Trochopoulos - Piano Recital

The Pharos Arts Foundation opens its 2014 season with a piano recital, organized in collaboration with the European University Cyprus, by the extremely charismatic Greek virtuoso Panagiotis Trochopoulos. The programme will include Holbrooke's Fantasie-Sonata No.1 “The Haunted Palace”, as well as one of the most taxing works ever written for solo piano, Alkan's momentous Concerto for Solo Piano. Composed in 1857 and lasting approximately 50 minutes, the Concerto (12 Studies in the Minor Keys) is an epic work which demands unprecedented levels of technical ability and physical stamina. Both works will receive their Cyprus premiere. The recital is given under the auspices of H.E. Mr. Vasilis Papaioannou, Ambassador of Greece, on the occasion of the Hellenic Presidency of the Council of the European Union.

PANAGIOTIS TROCHOPOULOS / PIANO

“Panagiotis Trochopoulos has perfect hands, outstanding technique and everything he needs in order to make a big journey in Music” Andrei Gavrilov

Panagiotis Trochopoulos, the Greek pianist and student of the legendary virtuoso Nikolai Petrov, was born in November 1982 in Greece and in May 2006 graduated from the Moscow State Conservatory. With a repertoire which includes 15 solo programs and 30 concertos for piano and orchestra, incorporating as well the complete concertos of Rachmaninov and the Busoni Piano Concerto, Panagiotis Trochopoulos has toured worldwide and performed throughout Europe and the US. He has collaborated with many distinguished conductors such as Tomasz Bugaj, Murad Annamamedov, Ovidiu Balan, Grigor Palikarov and Oktav Calleya.

His orchestral appearances have included performances of Brahms’ Second Piano Concerto with the Bulgarian Symphony Orchestra of Pazardjik, Prokofiev’s Third Piano Concerto with the Symphony Orchestra of Kissinau in Moldavia, Liszt’s First Piano Concerto with the Orchestra of the Municipality of Thessaloniki in Greece and Rachmaninov’s Third Piano Concerto with the Russian Symphony Orchestra of Yaroslavl. Trochopoulos has given a number of recitals at major international festivals such as the Athens Festival, the Sofia Festival, the “Musical Kremlin” Festival of Moscow, the Nafplion Festival and the English Music Festival where he presented an all-Holbrooke recital – "At last year's English Music Festival, Panagiotis Trochopoulos wowed audiences with his virtuosic performances of this very music" (EM Marshall, Albion Magazine). In 2002, he was chosen to represent the 1st Moscow-based Arensky Festival with concerts in Germany and Greece and in 2004, 2005 and 2006 he was one of the featured artists at the Malta International Festival.

Panagiotis Trochopoulos has released 4 CDs. His first CD, on Cameo Classics, with the Belarus State Academic Symphony Orchestra and conductor Marius Stravinsky, included the world premiere recording of a live performance of Pavel Pabst’s Piano Concerto. That was the first time since its premiere in St Petersburg in 1885, with the great Anton Rubinstein conducting, that Pabst’s lost Concerto was performed in concert. The CD was declared “Record of the Month” by MusicWeb International – “It now takes its rightful place among the great 19th-century concertos on CD with this unique concert recording, and receives stunning debut performances for this digital pure-stereo recording by the brilliant young musicians, pianist Panagiotis Trochopoulos, and British conductor Marius Stravinsky.”

His CD with solo works by Rachmaninov, Arensky, Stravinsky and Scriabin was met with equal critical acclaim – “Trochopoulos now adds a strong recital disc to that previous concerto one” (Jonathan Woolf). Panagiotis Trochopoulos’ Holbrooke solo works CD (vol.1) received raving reviews from the Gramophone magazine – “The Three Nocturnes from Op.121 with their glimpses of Grieg have a melancholy grace that the talented Trochopoulos captures to perfection" (Jeremy Nicholas, The Gramophone, March 2009). The CD was followed by a second volume, a world premiere recording of Holbrooke’s piano music – "There is much to enjoy from the tempestuous to the poetic" (Rob Barnett, MusicWeb International).

Most recently, Trochopoulos has appeared with Croatia’s Simfonijski Orkestar Hvratska Vojske in Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue in Zagreb, in a concert that inaugurated the entry of the Republic of Croatia into NATO. He was also invited to participate in a special concert for peace (“Musicians for Peace”) at Moscow’s Church of Christ the Savior, which featured 13 leading pianists from different countries, including Alexander Ghindin and Cyprien Katsaris, and he was chosen to participate in a gala concert-tribute to Marc-Andre Hamelin as one of the “new stars of the Russian piano school” in Moscow’s House of Music. He is currently recording his fifth CD, with piano transcriptions of Manos Hadjidakis’ music, which will be released later in 2014 by Universal. Upcoming concerts include the Russian premiere of Alkan’s Concerto for Solo Piano in Moscow (December 2013), the world premiere of Holbrooke’s Second Piano Concerto and Busoni’s Piano Concerto.

PROGRAMME:

Joseph Charles Holbrooke (1878 – 1958)
Fantasie-Sonata No.1, The Haunted Palace, Op.124 (1937)

Charles-Valentin Alkan (1813 – 1888)
Concerto for Solo Piano (12 Studies in the Minor Keys) (1857)

Tickets: €15 Adults / €10 Members of the Foundation, Concessions
Box Office: Tel. 7000-9304 (daily 9.30-11.30am) / www.pharostickets.org