Celebrating the 150th anniversary of composer Sergei Rachmaninoff

Ioannis Potamousis presents a solo piano program featuring Rachmaninoff’s miniature and larger compositions side by side with composers that inspired him: Mozart, Tchaikovsky, and Chopin.

Rachmaninoff is acclaimed as a composer who understood all the possibilities of the piano with legendary technical perfection. Looking beyond contemporary musical trends, he preferred to compose and perform in styles he held dear to his heart from childhood.

Ioannis Potamousis, described by the Pasatiempo as “New Colossus of the Keys”, is internationally acclaimed as a charismatic and passionate performer. He is known for his captivating artistry and introspective, poetic expression.

The program for the evening includes:

W.A. Mozart: Sonata No 4 in E-flat Major K 282 – 10 min

  • I. Adagio
  • II. Menuetto I
  • III. Menuetto II
  • IV. Allegro

S. Rachmaninoff: Trio élégiaque No.1 in G minor – 15 min

Klaudia Olborska-Szymańska, Violin

Sebastian Bose, Cello

Ioannis Potamousis, piano

F. Chopin: Scherzo No 3 in c-sharp minor op 39 – 6 min

Intermission – 20 min

S. Rachmaninoff: Concerto for piano No 2 op 18 in c-minor arranged for piano solo and string quintet by Jeremy Liu – 30 min

  • I. Moderato
  • II. Adagio sostenuto
  • III. Allegro scherzando

Ioannis Potamousis, piano solo

Niko Managazze, conductor

Klaudia Olborska-Szymańska, Violin I

Márta Lantos, Violin II

Ksenia Bakhina, Viola

Sebastian Bose, Cello

Janis Bukowski, Double Bass

Biography

Ioannis Potamousis

Potamousis’ performances have taken him to important international venues in Europe and the Middle East as well as across North America. He has played at the Athens Concert Hall, the international summer festival and, on his recent Middle Eastern tour, to concert halls in Palestine, Dubai and Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. The Dubai appearance included collaboration with the Youth Symphony Orchestra of Dubai. In New York, he has played in the Trinity Church Concert Series, the Mannes festival and at Steinway Hall, the Harvard Club and the Metropolitan Club. He has performed concertos with New York’s New Amsterdam Symphony, the Collegium Musicum of Cologne, the Summit (New Jersey) Symphony, the Athens State Orchestra, the New Jersey City Symphony Orchestra and the Rutgers Symphony Orchestra. Ioannis Potamousis is a prizewinner of several international piano contests, including the World Piano Competition in Cincinnati (Silver Medal), the International Piano Competition in Santa Fe, New Mexico (First prize) as well as the Beethoven Sonata Competition in Memphis. He holds degrees from Musikhochschule Cologne, New York’s Mannes College of Music and Rutgers University, where he received a Doctorate of Musical Arts. Most recently, Ioannis completed a Post Graduate Certificate in Education from Nottingham University. Currently, he is the Head of Keyboard Studies at Brighton College Abu Dhabi as well as the co-founder of “Pollen-Spreading the seeds of music”.