Apostolos Paraskevas is a
Grammy nominated composer and
guitarist. He was born in
Volos, Greece. Parents of Apostolos were Panayiotis Paraskevas (1925-1990) and Chrysoula Paraskevas (1929-2002).
Apostolos Paraskevas is a published recording artist and recently an award-winning Film Director/Producer. Gold Level Award at the 2010 California Film Awards, Silver Screen Award in the 2010 Nevada Film Festival.
Classical Guitar Magazine/London acknowledged him as the only guitarist ever to have a major orchestral piece performed at New York's
Carnegie Hall and the international press as the only musician who performed at Carnegie Hall in a Grim Reaper's outfit
He has received five First Prizes in International Composition Competitions. "Lukas Foss" Composition Competition 2000/USA, "Pappaioanou Composition" 1997/Greece, as well as performing with
Lukas Foss
Lukas Foss (August 15, 1922 – February 1, 2009) was a German-American composer, pianist, and conductor.
Career
Born Lukas Fuchs in Berlin, Germany in 1922, Foss was soon recognized as a child prodigy. He began piano and theory lessons with J ...
at Carnegie Hall, Paraskevas has performed at Weill Hall/New York,
Wertheim Performing Arts Center/Miami,
Jordan HallBoston, Capella Hall/Russia, and th
Athens Concert HallGreece etc. His eclectic compositional style arises as an idiosyncratic integration of seemingly conflicting influences – from avant-garde approaches to harmonic structure, form, and timbre, to pop-folk modal and rhythmical concepts – amalgamated into a personal evocative musical language, characterized by rhythmic verve, melodic grace, dramatic (and sometimes unexpectedly humorous) gestures, and ritualistic or theatrical elements-
Groves Dictionary of Music'
Paraskevas' profile is included in th
State of the Axepublication by photographe
Ralph Gibsonas one of 80 most innovative living guitarists.
He is a Professor of Music at
Berklee College of MusicBerklee Faculty Biographies
/ref> and a composer in residence at Northeastern University in Boston. Paraskevas was the founder and the Artistic Director (1990–2007) of the International Guitar Congress/ Corfu.
Paraskevas' compositions and performances are published by Centaur and Bridge Records/USA, Berben/Italy, Schott/Germany, Silver Sickle Productions and PaNas(Greece).
Apostolos Paraskevas was struck by Focal Dystonia
Focal dystonia, or focal task specific dystonia, is a neurological condition, a type of '' dystonia'', that affects a muscle or group of muscles in a specific part of the body during specific activities, causing involuntary muscular contractions an ...
to his right hand in 2009. He fully recovered in 2013 after 7,000 hours of work in re-constructing his technique. He was able to decode the condition as an ''unconscious behavioral habit'' and returned to performing professionally again. His article
A Classical Guitarist's Story of Recovery from Focal Dystonia
' was published in London in th
''Classical Guitar Magazine''
His latest recordin
'Phoenix'
2018 was received as 'the triumphant return to recording' by th
Classical Guitar Magazine
References
*
Living people
Greek composers
Musicians from Volos
Year of birth missing (living people)
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