For jazz lovers everywhere, the Bridge of Locks event with saxophonist Charis Ioannou and the Ioannis Vafeas Quartet will tick all your entertainment boxes on Friday at the Technopolis 20 Cultural Centre in Paphos.
Based on the rhythms of Straight Ahead Jazz, Ioannou together with drummer Ioannis Vafeas, bass player Greg Makamian and pianist Demetris Miaris will present songs from their album Bridge of Locks.
The Ioannou/Vafeas Jazz Group was created in 2016 after many years of collaboration and friendship between the two artists. Both Ioannou and Vafeas perform regularly in festivals and concert halls all over Europe. They have worked together a number of times on CDs, recordings and theatre productions.
They are both graduates of the Berklee College of Music in Boston Massachusetts, and they each hold a Master’s Degree in Jazz Music. They are also members of the faculty in the Department of Music in the University of Nicosia.
Ioannou, from Nicosia, studied saxophone performance and Jazz composition at Berklee. During his last year of study he won the Woodwind Achievement Award and after graduation he moved to New York where he stayed for three years. While there, he earned his Master’s Degree in performance from New York University and in the meantime performed and taught around the state. He moved back to Cyprus in 2005.
Back home he collaborated with various musicians and appeared in all the major clubs and festivals around the island. He also appeared in various venues around the world including those in Greece, Kuwait, Germany and Poland.
The saxophonist has also collaborated with the American Embassy in Cyprus in a Bi-Communal Jazz programme called Jazz Futures. As part of this programme, Ioannou performed alongside the group of Ari Roland and Chris Byars from 2007 to 2013.
He was also awarded for his musical talents in 2015, when he led a quartet of all Cypriot musicians called BopCy, and won second place in the first Greek Jazz Competition held in Athens.
At the moment, the musician is teaching the saxophone and the jazz idiom at the University of Nicosia as well as making guest faculty appearances in workshops held in Italy, Lebanon and Greece. He also continues to perform and record as a leader as well as a sideman in Cyprus and abroad.
Vafeas is the son of the late professional drummer Aristos Vafeas. Thus, he was exposed to music throughout his childhood and while in the army he was a member of the military band. After he graduated from Berklee, he obtained his master’s degree from the Boston’s Conservatory.
After graduation, he kept himself busy with performing, recording and teaching music of different styles including pop, funk and ethnic. His recordings for film particularly showcase his personal technic and style.
In 2003 he focused more on jazz and started forming bands who performed that idiom around the island. He has performed in festivals and venues in Poland, England, Italy and elsewhere and has also shared the stage with artists from the Cyprus Symphony Orchestra, the Moscow Symphony Orchestra and others. Today he teaches jazz in public schools.
Makamian has played with great musicians such as Chris Byars, Pasquale Grasso, Zaid Nasser, Pete and Will Anderson, Keith Balla, Phil Stewart, Ofer Landsberg, Stefano Doglioni, John Mosca, Charis Ioannou, Ioannis Vafeas, Marios Toumbas and many others.
Recently the bassist performed with the Cyprus Symphony Orchestra and the Charis Ioannou Group, presenting the music of Charlie Parker in Bird with Strings.
Miaris started playing classical piano from the age of six and by 16 he had his first connection with jazz through the Jazz Futures workshops in Nicosia. Since then he has performed in Cyprus and Greece and has received his Bachelor Degree for Jazz Piano at the Ionian University’s Jazz Department. Over the past two years he has participated in Dr.Barry Harris’ workshops in Rome.
Ioannou/Vafeas Jazz Quartet
Jazz performance. February 10. Technopolis 20, Paphos. 8pm. €10. Tel: 70-002420
