The European Capital of Culture Paphos 2017 and the Musical Lyceum of Paphos will be honouring the Cypriot pianist and composer Nicolas Economou on Saturday with a screening of a documentary on the artist as well as a musical performance.
Speeches will then be given by European Capital of Culture Paphos 2017 cultural manager Georgia Ntetser and the president of the Nicolas Economou Foundation Christos Filaktou, and the students from the Musical Lyceum will perform selected pieces of the composer’s work on piano and guitar.
The pieces to be performed will be Curiosity, Reverie, Melancholy, Caprice and Griechischer Tanz, the last three from Kinderlaunen.
The night will end with the screening of the 70-minute documentary entitled A Tribute to Nicolas Economou in Greek.
Economou is an important figure of the Cypriot culture scene. He came from a family who loved classical music. At the age of five, he started taking piano lessons and he soon started improvising on the piano and composing short pieces of music.
When the Cypriot composer and friend of the family Solon Michaelides heard him play for the first time, when Economou was only six years old, he said “this child is a blessing to his parents, Cyprus, and the world”.
He came to international attention at the 1969 Tchaikovsky Competition when he was 16. After studying at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow he eventually moved to Munich. From there he established himself throughout Europe as a concert pianist, composer, arranger, conductor and organiser of music festivals.
As a performer, he appeared in Europe, the USA and Canada as well as the USSR, Japan, Iceland, and Israel. He performed solo, though also with orchestras and other famous performers and composers like Martha Argerich, Rodion Shchedrin, Sviatoslav Richter, Michel Beroff, Chick Corea and others.
As well as performing in concert with Martha Argerich and Chick Corea, he also recorded with them.
The Nicolas Economou Foundation has published seven CDs under the series title L’Art de Nicolas Economou, compiling hours of recordings that Economou left behind after his tragic death in a car accident in 1993, at the age of 40.
As a composer, many of his works have themes and rhythms from Cyprus and the Mediterranean. Some of his compositions are: Children Studies, Sonata for Chick (dedicated to Chick Corea) for piano, Cyprus Picture and Cyprus Dances for an eight-piece ensemble. He wrote the soundtracks for twelve films including Rosa Luxemburg and Die bleierne Zeit, both by Margarethe von Trotta.
Economou also arranged Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker Suite (originally written for orchestra) for two pianos, dedicated to his daughter and Martha Argerich’s daughter. Performers and critics alike have praised this arrangement, since all the musical colours portrayed by the orchestra are very well conveyed by two pianos. Economou also arranged Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons for four pianos.
A Tribute to Nicolas Economou
A screening of the documentary on the artist, pianist and composer, and a musical performance by students. February 27. Archbishop Makarios III Lyceum, 7 Georgiou Griva Digeni Avenue, Paphos. 6pm. Free. Tel: 26-932017
