Fundraiser for Lixouri Philharmonic

BIOGRAPHY

Areta Zhoula
Recently awarded the 2011 “Young Artist of the Year” by the National Critics Association of Music and Drama in Greece, and recipient of the Triandi Career Grant as well as the Tassos Prassopoulos Foundation Award, Greek violinist Areta Zhulla (Αρετή Ζούλα) is quickly establishing herself as a compelling artist.

Ms. Zhulla has performed extensively as a soloist, recitalist and chamber musician throughout the United States, Europe, Canada and Asia, at many renowned venues such as Carnegie Hall, Auditorium du Louvre, Alice Tully Hall, Kennedy Center, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and National Arts Centre of Canada. Ms. Zhulla made her Megaron Hall debut in Athens in 2010, performing under the baton of legendary French conductor Michel Plasson and the Athens State Symphony Orchestra. Other recent engagements include solo performances with the Camerata Orchestra of Greece, Westchester Philharmonic, Kenosha Symphony, and the State Symphony of Thessalonica.

From 2012-2015 Ms. Zhulla performed with The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center as a Chamber Music Society Two Artist. For two seasons, Ms. Zhulla was a member of the LK String Quartet, which was praised by The Washington Post for “warm tone, elegant finish, a vivid engagement with the scores’ drama and ensemble that was tight as a drum.” She has performed with legendary violinist Itzhak Perlman at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Rose Theater at Lincoln Center. Other collaborations include performances with Pinchas Zukerman, Orli Shaham, Donald Weilerstein, Paul Katz, and the Cavani String Quartet. Ms. Zhulla has appeared in such music festivals as Music@Menlo, The Perlman Music Program Chamber Music Workshop, Kneisel Hall, and Pinchas Zukerman’s Young Artists Program in Canada, and has studied for seven summers at the Perlman Music Program Summer School.

Ms. Zhulla holds a Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from The Juilliard School in New York City, where she studied with Itzhak Perlman and Catherine Cho, and was a recipient of the Vergotis Scholarship. Other teachers include Pinchas Zukerman and Lefter Zhulla.
Ms. Zhulla performs on a copy of Stradivarius’s “Viotti,” made by her father in 2009, Greek luthier Lefter Zhulla.

Vassilis Varvaresos
“Varvaresos not only has a natural yet finely honed technique, it springs as one with the wide scope of profound musicianship. Varvaresos engaged his audience with a performance that sizzled from start to finish.”

• New York Concert Review

March 2012 marked Mr. Varvaresos’ Carnegie Hall recital debut, to both audience and critical acclaim. Immediately following his debut, he was asked to play at the White House for President Barrack Obama.

Being re-invited to the Athens Festival of 2012, Mr. Varvaresos made his inaugural appearance at the Herodeion theater in Athens, performing Prokofiev’s Concerto no. 2 with the Athens State Symphony Orchestra.

In December 2010 Mr. Varvaresos was named Most Promising Young Greek Artist from the Critics’ Association of Greece. The dynamic young Greek pianist is also the 1st Prize winner of the Maria Chairogiorgou-Sigara 3rd International Piano Competition, held in Athens in May 2010.

Winner of the coveted First Prize in the Young Concert Artists International Auditions at the age of 14, his recital debuts in New York and Washington were acclaimed. The New York Concert Review ended thus: “Following this great program greatly played, Vassilis Varvaresos played a spicy Greek dance with all the exuberance and heartiness of a soul in love with life.” The Washington Post’s headline called him a “Young Master on the Rise.”

Mr. Varvaresos made his sensational New York orchestra debut in 2007 at Lincoln Center performing Lowell Liebermann’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Juilliard Orchestra under the baton of Andreas Delfs. In October 2010, as a special guest of the Archbishop of the Greek-Orthodox Church of America, Mr. Varvaresos appeared with the Manhattan Symphony Orchestra in Chopin’s Piano Concerto in e minor at Alice Tully Hall, while in the winter of 2008 he was asked to be the soloist with the Athens State Symphony Orchestra, representing Greece on a two-week tour of China, on the occasion of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. Mr. Varvaresos performed in front of a total of 6,000 people on that occasion.

Mr. Varvaresos made his recital debut in Athens, Greece, appearing at the 2010 Athens Festival. During the same summer he appeared in recital and chamber music concerts in Mykonos, Greece, as well as in Constantinople and Cyprus.

His previous seasons included concerts in Vienna’s legendary Musikverein, performances of Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Cyprus Symphony Orchestra in Leukosia and Lemesos under the baton of Spiros Pisinos, recitals in Mykonos and a featured concert at the International Piano Festival of Gijón, Spain.

Since then, he has performed on numerous occasions both in the U.S. and abroad. Highlight performances include an appearance with the Westmoreland Symphony Orchestra, where Mr. Varvaresos performed Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini and Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue in a double-bill special event, as well as concerto and recital appearances in the U.S. and his native Greece.

As a soloist with orchestra in the United States, Mr. Varvaresos has performed Grieg’s Piano Concerto with the Victoria Symphony in Texas; Tchaikovsky’s Concerto No. 1 with the Westmoreland Symphony (PA); Chopin’s Concerto No. 2 with the Dearborn (MI) Orchestra Society; Haydn’s Concerto in D Major with the Hartford Symphony; Mozart’s Concerto No. 5 with the Modesto (CA) Symphony; Mozart’s Concerto no. 20 with the Altoona (PA) Symphony; Rachmaninov’s Concerto no. 1 with the JCC of Greater Washington; and Beethoven’s Concerto no. 3 with the Sacramento Youth Symphony.

Mr. Varvaresos’ performances in his native Greece include the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto at the Megaron Hall with the Athens State Symphony Orchestra; Solon Michailides’s Piano Concerto and the Grieg Piano Concerto in the Megaron Hall of Athens; Rachmaninov’s Concerto no. 2; Mozart’s Concerto no. 20; and Beethoven’s Concerto No. 3, with the Orchestra of Thessaloniki. He has performed numerous times on Greek State Television, as well as on television in Italy, Yugoslavia and Bulgaria. Mr. Varvaresos has represented Greece in a special “EuroConcert” at the Museum of Modern Art in Helsinki, at the Greek Embassy in Milan, and for the U.S. Ambassador to Greece. He has also performed as a recitalist in Austria, Germany, France, Italy, The Czech Republic, Bulgaria, and Yugoslavia.

Mr. Varvaresos is a founding member of Fourtissimo!, a group of four award-winning pianists whose goal is to reinvent the concert-going experience through tasteful and uncompromising experimentation: unorthodox choice of repertoire, questions and choices concerning the form of the piano recital, and original compositions/transcriptions that test the limitations of the instrument and point the way towards a new type of instrumental virtuosity and inventiveness. The group’s debut at Carnegie’s Zankel Hall in October 2010 received immediate audience and critical acclaim.

Mr. Varvaresos is also active as a composer. His dance composition Three Etudes was chosen to represent the Juilliard School in a Dance Forum hosted by the Pallucca Schüle in Dresden, Germany in October 2007. He has written ten film scores, including “Ellsworth Kelly: Fragments” and “Sir John Soane: An English Architect, an American Legacy” produced by the Checkerboard Film Foundation. He has also composed the score for the short film “Hardwood.”

Born in Thessaloniki, Greece in 1983, Mr. Varvaresos started studying music at the age of five, and received a scholarship to the Conservatory of Nothern Greece. He continued his studies at the Conservatory with Milena Mollova. He won First Prize in the 1995 Petar Konjovic International Competition in Belgrade, the 1996 Pan-Hellenic Young Artist Competition in Athens, and was chosen as one of eleven young musicians from around the world to perform in Monte Carlo in a special “little Mozarts” concert organized by Italy’s RAI TV.

Mr. Varvaresos holds a Bachelor of Music degree and a Master of Music degree from the Juilliard School, where he studied with Jerome Lowenthal. His paper on Claude Debussy, which won the Scholastic Distinction Award from The Juilliard School, was published in Greece by Kodikas Publications. In May 2011 Mr. Varvaresos received his Doctorate in Piano Performance from the Juilliard School. He was a student of Jerome Lowenthal, Yoheved Kaplinsky, and Robert MacDonald.

Mr. Varvaresos is currently pursuing the prestigious Diplôme d’Artiste-Interpète degree at the Conservatoire Nationale et Supérieur de Musique et de Danse in Paris, France. He studies with Michel Dalberto.

He has been recipient of Musical Studies Grants from the Bagby Foundation and George & Marie Vergottis Scholarships at The Juilliard School. Since 2008, he has also been the recipient of the Gina Bachauer Foundation Grant for Outstanding Talent in Music and the Onassis Foundation Grant.