Miltiades Papastamou, violinist

Miltiades Papastamou was born into a Greek musical family in Memphis, USA, in 1966.

He studied the violin at the Hellenic Conservatory (Athens, Greece) under professor Stelios Kafantaris, at the Guildhall School of Music (London) under professor Mark Knight, and at the Manhattan School of Music (New York) under professor Albert Markov, with scholarship awards from the Greek Government, the Onassis Foundation, The Prizewinners Performers Trust, the Musigetis Foundation and the Manhattan School of Music.

The violinist won two competitions: the Artists’ International (New York, 1994) and the Greek American Music Contest (Chicago, 1995).

Mr. Papastamou soloed in venues which include the Athens Concert Hall and the Acropolis Theater (Athens), the Lincoln Centre and Carnegie (New York), the Queen Elisabeth Hall (London), the Berlin Konzerthaus, the Beethovenhaus (Bonn), and the National Estonian Hall, presenting, among other works, the world premieres of five concertos for violin and orchestra, all of which included improvised cadenzas and were dedicated to the soloist by the composers.

As a concert soloist, Mr. Papastamou performed with the Absolute Ensemble, The Bavarian Radio Symphony, the Opera of Sofia Symphony, the Athens State Symphony, the Athens Symphony, the National Radio Symphony, the Greek Radio Contemporary Music Ensemble, the Thessaloniki State Symphony, the Cyprus Symphony, and the Camerata String Orchestra among others.

The artist toured in Greece, Cyprus, Germany, Austria, UK, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Andorra, Romania, Estonia, Latvia, USA, Bolivia, Brazil, Australia, China and Japan.

A former Artist-in-Residence for New York’s Grammy nominated Absolute Ensemble, an amplified chamber symphonic group which crosses the traditional borders in music, Mr. Papastamou repertoire and music style expands from classical to contemporary, rock, ethnic and improvised music.

He recorded two personal CD’s: “Dialogue Blue”, with pianist Marcos Alexiou -a mixture of classic, cool, and ethnic jazz (CCn’C, Germany, 2000) and “West to East”, with singer-songwriter Alkinoos Ioannidis – a contemporary version of old and ancient music and songs from Cyprus (UNIVERSAL Greece, 2006).

                                                                 CRITIC’S REVIEWS:

“…he has more sensitivity for the jazz sound than classical soloists such as Perlman and Mullova…What others try to achieve, he has got it from intuition.”

“Dialogue Blue” CD review,

Rondo Magazine, Germany, October 2000

“…he has removed the bounds of the conventional repertoire long ago…His pose is evident in both his classical and non classical repertoire…Going beyond traditional hermeneutics and bridging old antinomies. He brings into music fresh blood and new audiences…drawing them in a frenzied outburst of applause…”

Yiannis Svolos,

Eleftherotypia Newspaper, January 28, 1997

“He is at ease, confident, with extremely rapid fingers and a very stable bow, rich, warm and flexible sound; qualities that allow him to overcome in a mundane manner the obvious and not so obvious trappings of this (Prokofiev’s 1st Concerto) very stylized work…”

Kostas Charalambides,

Niki Newspaper, January 18, 1995

“A performance that was both musically and technically of very high order…superbly insightful and lyrical playing… an artist of enormous poise”.

James Wiersbicki,

St. Louis Post Dispatch, USA, February 1, 1994

Geelvinck Salon:

op 1 februari 2015 treedt Miltiades Papastamou op met het Mederterranean Trio