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Biography

Born in Athens in 1963 . Giannis spend his childhood tampered with vacant lots of Lamia and Volos . However what he spent endless hours on was reconstructing the songs he listened to, to discover what there really was inside. The good piano teacher would tell him off for going uprepared to the lesson after such a waste of music time but in the end something stuck: The habit of making music .

 

As a kid his first dreamjob was that of a lighthouse keeper. However, since it was hard to haul the piano to the top of the lighthouse he decided to become a surveyer studying at the Athens Polytechnic School. He spend his U-years carefree playing piano in the choir and orchestra of the University , while playing various instruments in music stages in Athens. A bit after mid- 80s he received his degree and began working as a surveyor engineer .

 

He never stopped playing with different groups initially as a keyboardist and later mainly as an accordionist. H also played the guitar and various traditional instruments. Ever since 2002 he has been a member of Carousel group where he plays the accordion and the guitar.

 

In mid 90s he started composing music for musical theater , dance groups , children's musicals & books , performances for children , multimedia , events, exhibitions e.t.c. He has collaborated with musical theater groups and dance groups such as “ Afros”, “Eikasma” , “TNT”, “Ex Soma”, “Dance of Art”, “Syrma” e.t.c.Some of his songs feature in the CD “2nd audition of Mikri Arktos”.

 

Over the last few years he has had a permanent collaboration with Chroma Musika (Montreal) in Greek-Canadian co-productions , composing music and songs for children's musicals performed and recorded by symphony orchestras , children’s choirs and soloists : " The Carnival of Miracles and Monsters" " The Magic Recorder“, “Time for Flowers, Time for Snow”. He has collaborated with “Orchestre Symphonique Pop de Montreal” and “Ensemble Symphonia de Montreal”.

 

Giannis is into PC’s and recordings. He loves technology, and can be seen always carrying a laptop on his back and a tablet in his pocket.. He loves the music of composers like Manos Hadjidakis , Nicola Piovani, Danny Elfmann, Kurt Weil, Nino Rota, Astor Piazzolla. He also loves Tim Buckley, Coctau Twins, Curved Air, Tom Waits, David Bowie, Rolling Stones. And a few thousand more.

 

He adores humor and he has had the unique opportunity to collaborate with renouwned comedians like Arkas ("You wake the beast in me" (Livanis publications) music for Arkas exhibition Gazi 2002 ) , and Terry Jones of Monty Python («Time for Flowers, Time for Snow » Chromamusika - Tradewind Books).

 

He also likes good beer , mathematics , vinyl , crime novels and science fiction .

 

He is married to Carousel’s singer Marialena Spinoula who is involved in a lot of his music work and helps out in lots of others.

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