Exhibitions

December 16 and 17

Exhibition by luthier Tassos Koukourigos

Sponsor of VIGF 2023 Solo Guitar Competition offering a prestigious concert guitar of 4000 Euros value.

Foyer of Antoniadios Stegi

More on Tassos Koukourigos:

Classical guitar luthier Tassos Koukourigos was born in Thessaloniki, Greece in 1972.

He begun building greek traditional musical instruments with his brother Giannis in 1993, facinated by the way a piece of wood acquires soul when transformed into an instrument.

In 1998 they organized and teached at the first school of traditional musical instrument making in Kastoria, Greece under the auspices of the Greek Ministry of Culture.

This is when Tassos entered the classical guitar world by making historic instruments replicas such as Lacote and Torres.

From 2003 until 2019 they settled in Siderohori, Serres building classical guitars at their own workshop. During this period Tassos participated, among others, at the following exhibitions:

• 2003, Brussels, European Parliament
• 2005, Veria Guitar Festival
• 2006, Brno Guitar Festival, Chech Republic
• 2008, 1^st Exhibiton of greek classical guitars, Museum of Musical Instruments “ Phoebus Anoyannakis”
• 2017, 1^st Salzburg Classical Guitar Festival, Austria

Since 2019 he follows a personal path settled in Thessaloniki. Based on a long experience in the guitar making field and introducing innovative designs and qualities he aims to take instrument building a step further at a time.

 

December 16 and 17

Exhibition by guitarist - luthier Antonis Hatzinikolaou

Foyer of Antoniadios Stegi.

More on Antonis Hatzinikolaou at:

https://antonishatzinikolaou.com

Antonis Hatzinikolaou is considered today as one of the most distinguished guitarists of his generation. He has received distinctions in numerous international guitar competitions including the Hubert Käppel Competition, the Ivor Mairants Award and the prestigious Julian Bream Prize, adjudicated by the maestro himself.

After receiving the Park Lane Group Young Artist Award he made his Purcell Room debut, which led to professional engagements that have taken him to Italy, Greece, Cyprus, Spain, and the UK. He has performed in a number of distinguished concert halls such as Queen Elizabeth Hall, Royal Albert Hall, St. Martin-in-the-fields and Kings Place in London (UK), Athens’s Megaron (Greece) and recently made his debut at Mixon Hall in Cleveland (USA). His performances have been heard frequently on BBC Radio 3 and on ERT Radio 3.

In 2008, Draft Records released his debut solo CD, which Classical Guitar Magazine described as: “Magnificent … simply magnificent! …this is playing of the highest standard…”. Other releases include NMC’s “Songbook”, where Antonis Hatzinikolaou collaborated with other artists and won the 2009 Classic FM Gramophone award for Contemporary Music.

The great success of these discs resulted in the recording of the first ever album in the history of the NMC for solo guitar. Dedicated to British composers of the 20th century, the disk was released in April 2013. The Gramophone magazine wrote that: “Hatzinikolaou… proves to be one of the most eloquent advocates for British guitar music you could wish for”.

Antonis Hatzinikolaou graduated from Philippos Nakas Conservatory in Athens where he studied with Alexandra Christodimou, proceeding to the Royal Academy of Music in London, where he gained his MMus, under the tutelage of Michael Lewin, Timothy Walker and John Mills. Upon his graduation, he was awarded the Reginald Thatcher Award for General Excellence, and the Honorary Dip RAM – the highest performance award conferred by the Royal Academy. In 2016 he has been awarded an “Honorary Associate of the Royal Academy of Music” (ARAM) by RAM’s Governing Board of Directors.

Apart from his music making , performing and teaching, Antonis Hatzinikolaou has spend a number of years developing his skills making fine classical guitars. He has been fortunate to learn the craft next the Greek Master guitar maker Nicholas Ioannou (New York) and George Pandelias (Athens). His work has been inspired by the Hermann Hauser - Robert Bouchet tradition and influenced by a number of great luthiers of our time such as Dominique Field and Jeffrey Elliot.

At present, Antonis Hatzinikolaou divides his time building guitars and being a guitar professor at the Phillipos Nakas Conservatory in Athens.