Janis Vakarelis enjoys a major international career, which has developed worldwide since he won the 1st Prize at the 1979 Queen Sofia International Piano Competition in Madrid.

He has worked with many eminent conductors including L. Maazel, C. Davis, S. Rattle, K. Masur, M. Rostropovitch, V. Ashkenazy, Y. Menuhin, C. Eschenbach, M. Janowski, N. Marriner.

The orchestras with which he has worked include Leipzig Gewandhaus, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Staatskapelle Dresden, Orchestre de Paris, City of Birmingham Symphony, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Philharmonia, St.Martin-in-the-Fields, Orchestre National de France, Wiener Symphoniker, RAI Torino, Dresden Philharmonic.

Janis Vakarelis has recorded extensively over the years for RCA (Brahms, Prokofiev), ASV (Brahms), RPO Records (Liszt, Prokofiev, Gershwin),which earned him extraordinary reviews in Gramophone, Classical Music and Diapason –specifically for the recording of Liszt 2nd and Prokofiev 3rd Piano Concertos with the Royal Philharmonic under Witold Rowicki and the Gershwin Piano Concerto in F with Henry Lewis.

He has also appeared at the following International Festivals: London Proms, Schleswig-Holstein, Spoleto, Brescia-Bergamo, Echternach, Sintra, Brno, Enescu, and the Gstaad Festival.

Janis Vakarelis is equally comfortable as a concerto performer, chamber musician and festival director: he has worked with artists like Y. Bashmet, S. Isserlis,H. Schiff, V. Spivakov, A. Dumay, M. Maisky, M. Portal, Ensemble Wien, Berlin Philharmonic Quartet, Fine Arts Quartet.

Janis is Artistic Director of the Nafplion International Music Festival which he founded in Greece in 1991.

The last season's highlights include performances with the Orchestra Sinfonica Siciliana, La Scala String Quartet, Bangkok Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonic Orchestra of the University of Mexico, Orchestra Sinfonica di Maggio Musicale Fiorentino with Zubin Mehta and he is showcasing the World Premiere of the Piano Concerto by Rene Koering.

The President of Greece presented him with the Order of the Golden Phoenix for his services to music.

He has lived in Paris since 1980.

2014/2015
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