The autumn season of the Pharos Arts Foundation will open on Saturday with a performance by the highly acclaimed jazz duo Takoushis-Karapatakis and renowned German percussion virtuoso Udo Demandtm at the Shoe Factory in Nicosia.
The Takoushis-Karapatakis Project is a contemporary jazz ensemble from Cyprus, formed in 2008 when pianist and composer Marios Takoushis and bassist and composer Gabriel Karapatakis came together. The duo’s distinctive European jazz sound based on strong melodies and virtuosic improvisations, defies any self-classification. Their music, based on and developed from the fundamentals of jazz improvisation and individual self-expression, displays original ideas which are inspired by the music traditions of the Mediterranean. And while it does not engage in loud and ostentatious conversations with these traditions, it brings about “memories”, which stem from the two artists’ motherland but also from the evolution of the jazz genre, and are deeply embedded, inseparably intertwined even, in the Project’s musical corpus.
The Takoushis-Karapatakis Project’s discography has received critical and audience acclaim all over the world, and their music has been included in the EBU’s jazz album, The Music of Europe. Their first album, Sympnoia, was released in 2010, while two years later they released Seven Miles East. In 2015 they released Colours Of Another Sky, which was recorded at The Shoe Factory and has received rave reviews.
Takoushis studied at the Berklee College of Music in Boston and at the Conservatoire National Superiur de Lyon. He currently resides in London and works as a film and television composer. In 2010, Takoushis composed the adrenaline fuelled score for Electronic Arts’ Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit (PS3, XBOX 360, PC, iPhone) which was one of the year’s most successful releases having won numerous awards including best multiplayer game at the BAFTAs. He has recently finished writing the music for Channel 4’s factual series Inside The National Crime Agency and has been assisting EMMY-nominated composer Charlie Mole with additional arrangements for Universal Pictures’ Dad’s Army as well as ITV’s Mr Selfridge.
Karapatakis studied music at the Mannes College of Music in New York and at the Rotterdam Conservatory in the Netherlands. As a bass player, he has featured in a great number of CDs. He has extensively performed in the Netherlands, having collaborated with renowned jazz soloists and ensembles, and has given concerts in London, Paris, Berlin, Munich, Cologne, Belgrade, Sidney and Beirut. Karapatakis is a founding member of the jazz band Ambodis Quintet, a founding member of the jazz-funk band Uptown Beat, and he has been a member of the Cyprus Big Band for many years. He has composed music for numerous documentaries, TV programmes and dance performances, and he has been a professor of bass guitar in various colleges and universities in Cyprus.
On Saturday, the duo will be joined by Demandt, who started playing the drums at the age of eight. He studied drums and percussion at the Conservatorium in Rotterdam (Rotterdam World Music Academy) and has been on study trips to Santiago de Cuba, Istanbul and Andalucia. Since 1997 he has performed throughout Europe and collaborated on tours in Africa and Asia with various groups (flamenco, samba, afro, Latin-jazz). His versatility and extraordinary musical talents have made him a very well-known percussionist in the Netherlands and beyond.
The concert is supported by the Goethe-Institut Zypern.
Takoushis, Karapataksi featuring Udo Demandt
Musical performance presented by the Pharos Arts Foundation. September 9. The Shoe Factory, Nicosia. 8.30pm. € 15/10. Tel: 22-663871
