Artists

Simos Papanas

Simos Papanas was born in Salonica in 1979. He began his studies in music at the New Salonica Conservatory and completed them at Oberlin and Yale Universities in the U.S.A. His professors included P. Arnaoudov, St. Kafantaris, T. Gabora and E. Friedman for the violin, M. McDonald for baroque violin and H. Samaras in theory and composing. He has a Master’s degree in maths from Yale University.

He has collaborated as a soloist with the National Orchestras of Athens and Salonica, the Camerata- Orchestra of the Friends of Music, the orchestra of Patra, the Sofia Philarmonic, The American Bach Soloists(San Fransisco), the Louisiana Sinfonietta, the Symphonic Orchestra of Costanza(Romania), the Orchestra of Debrecen (Hungary) etc. He has given recitals in Greece, Bulgaria, FYROM, Hungary, Italy, Germany, Egypt, Canada and the U.S.A. He has taught at the Thuringische Sommerakademie (Germany) and has given lessons during a violin seminar at Louisiana State University. He performed for the first time worldwide the Concerto for two violins by N. Skalkotas next to the violinist G. Demerzis at the Heroduw Atticus Theatre (Athens Festival 2004). The performance was recorded for the BIS Company. His performance of the Concerto for violin by D. Konstantinidis with the Louisiana Sinfonietta has been released on CD by the Magni company.

He received First Prize in the Baroque Violin Competition of the American Bach Soloists, the Kaufmann and Orr awards (for the violin and mathematics respectively) from Oberlin University, First Place in the Benefactors Scholarship from Cambridge University and First Prize in the competition of the Greek Mathematics... He has composed works and kantentses for the violin, chamber music and music for the theater.

Many of his works have been presented in both Europe and the U.S.A. by important artists, while Naka-Papagrigoriou publications published four of his works in 2005.

Since 2003 he has been permanent exarhon of the State Orchestra of Thessaloniki.