Dimitri Vassilakis

Dimitri Vassilakis began his musical studies in Athens, where he was born in 1967, continuing at the Paris Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique, in particular under Gérard Frémy, where he won First Prize for piano (unanimously), for chamber music and for accompaniment. He also studied with Monique Deschaussées and György Sebok. Since 1992 he has been a soloist with the Ensemble Intercontemporain. Other composers he has worked with include Iannis Xenakis, Luciano Berio, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and György Kurtàg. His recording Le Scorpion with the Percussions de Strasbourg won the Charles Cros Academy Grand Prix du Disque in the category “Best Contemporary Music Recording 2004”. His festival appearances include Salzburg, Edinburgh, Lucerne, the Florence Maggio Musicale, the Warsaw Autumn, the Ottawa Chamber Music Festival, and the London Proms. He has performed in concert halls such as the Berlin Philharmonic (under Sir Simon Rattle), New York Carnegie Hall, London Royal Festival Hall, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, and Buenos Aires Teatro Colón. He has performed as a soloist with several orchestras such as the Seoul Philharmonic, Buenos Aires Philharmonic, Katowice Philharmonic, Tirana Opera and Radio Orchestra and Suisse-Romande Orchestra. His repertoire runs from Bach to emerging contemporary composers including the complete piano works by Pierre Boulez and Iannis Xenakis. His albums include, among others, the Goldberg Variations and excerpts from The Well-Tempered Clavier by Bach (with the label Quantum), etudes by György Ligeti and Fabiàn Panisello (Neos) and Boulez’s first complete works for piano (Cybele). His recording of Incises (for which he performed the world premiere) appears in the boxed set of the complete works of Boulez published by DGG.