Artists

Janis Vakarelis

Janis Vakarelis enjoys a major international career, which has developed worldwide since he won the 1st Prize at the 1979 Queen Sofia International Piano Competition in Madrid.

He has worked with many eminent conductors including Simon Rattle, Colin Davis, Kurt Masur, Mstislav Rostropovitch, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Charles Dutoit, Yehudi Menuhin, Neville Marriner, Christoph Eschenbach, Marek Janowski. The leading orchestras with which he has performed include Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Staatskapelle Dresden, Orchestre de Paris, Orchestre National de France, City of Birmingham Symphony, Royal Philharmonic, Philharmonia, St.Martin-in-the-Fields, Wiener Symphoniker Orchestra Nationale della RAI, Dresden Philharmonic.

Janis Vakarelis has recorded extensively over the years for RCA (Brahms, Prokofiev), ASV (Brahms), RPO Records (Liszt, Prokofiev, Gershwin) which earned him extraordinary reviews In Gramophone, Classical Music and Diapason – specifically for the recording of Liszt 2nd and Prokofiev 3rd Piano concertos with the Royal Philharmonic under Witold Rowicki and the Gerswhin Piano Concerto in F with Henry Lewis.

He performs at the most prestigious halls – Musikverein Vienna, Festspielhaus Salzburg, Berliner Philharmonie, Tonhalle Zurich, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Victoria Hall Geneva, Royal Festival Hall, Royal Albert Hall London and international festivals – London Proms, Schleswig-Holstein, La Roque d'Anthéron, Spoleto, Brescia-Bergamo, Echternach, Sintra, Enescu, Gstaad Festival.

Janis Vakarelis is equally comfortable as a concerto performer, chamber musician and Festival director: he has worked with artists like Yuri Bashmet, Steven Isserlis, Heinrich Schiff, Misha Maisky, Vladimir Spivakov, Augustin Dumay, Michel Portal, Ensemble Wien, Philharmonia Quartet Berlin, New Fine Arts Quartet, Quartetto della Scala.

Janis is Artistic Director of the Nafplion Music Festival which he founded in Greece in 1991.

Appearances in recent seasons included his debut with Zubin Mehta and the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino Orchestra, with Lorin Maazel and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, with the Wiener Symphoniker and Gerd Albrecht at the Enescu Festival and in 2008 he gave the World Première of the Piano Concertino by René Koering.

In 2008/09 he is performing among others with Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Philharmonia and with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Sakari Oramo.

The President of Greece presented him with the Order of the Golden Phoenix for his services to music.