Biography
 

Ever since winning seven prizes at the Concours Olivier Messiaen piano contemporain (Paris, 2003) and the Concours International de piano d'Orléans (Orléans, 2006) Prodromos Symeonidis has gained worldwide recognition as an outstanding interpreter of classical music and especially music of the 20th and 21st century. His piano playing has elicited enthusiasm and praise from some of the world's top musicians and critics... "un grand artiste", "un roi du piano" (Yvonne Loriod Messiaen), "an outstanding technique and a superb musical sensitivity" (Kent Nagano), "his playing is full of colour, spirit and feeling" (George Benjamin), "superb pianist" (Fanfare), "geistig wie manuell eindringliches Spiel", "außerordentlich anschlagsvariabel" (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) "with a stunning mastery" (ConcertoNet), „a pianistic sovereignty“ (Piano News).

Prodromos Symeonidis was born in Thessaloniki, Greece, in 1972. Apart from music and the piano, which were his constant companions from early childhood, he also had a great fondness for mathematics and astronomy, which were later on combined with a love for the cinema. As a youth, he won many prizes at national and international contests for mathematics and was twice, in 1988 and 1989, part of the Greek team at the International Mathematical Olympiad (winner of a bronze medal in 1989).

Since 1990, he lives in Germany, where he pursued and completed his piano studies in Munich and at the Musikhochschulen of Cologne and Berlin under Michael Endres, Karin Merle, Arbo Valdma and Georg Sava. Besides soloistic piano, he studied instrumental pedagogy and took part in composition seminars under Krzysztof Meyer and Walter Zimmermann. Fruitful for his pianistic development have also been guidances in Paris and Vienna by Yvonne Loriod-Messiaen, Claude Helffer and Dmitri Bashkirov.

His piano competition successes of 2003 and 2006 have led to an extensive international career. He appeared in numerous festivals and major halls throughout the world, including the Konzerthaus Berlin, Philharmonie Berlin, Philharmonie Essen, Residenz Munich, Sendesaal Bremen, Tonhalle Düsseldorf, Opéra National de Paris, Arsenal de Metz, Seoul Arts Center and Shanghai Oriental Arts Center.

He has recorded works by Beethoven, Hindemith, Ravel, Prokofiev, Messiaen and many contemporary composers for the German radios SWR, BR and Radio Bremen and for France Musique. He has further recorded nine CDs for the German labels Telos Music and NEOS Music, which were highly praised by the international press like FAZ, Fanfare, Pizzicato, Piano News, ResMusica and ConcertoNet.

Aside from his activities as an interpreter, Prodromos Symeonidis has been a teacher, ensemble director and composer. During the last two decades he has been invited to give masterclasses, workshops and lectures in numerous institutions and Universities in Europe (Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler Berlin, Hochschule für Musik Hannover, Contemporary Music Centre “Acanthes”, École Normale de Musique de Paris, Conservatoire Royal de Liège, in USA (University of Virginia, University of Miami) and in Asia (Soongsil University Seoul, Music Conservatories of Xi'an, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Guiyang).

In 2008 he co-founded the internationally active ensemble Berlin PianoPercussion, of which he was from 2008 till 2020 the artistic director. Up to now the ensemble has received sponsorships by many notable sponsors, among them the Deutscher Musikrat, the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation, the City of Berlin, the Goethe-Institut and the DAAD. It has commissioned and premiered over fifty new works for pianos and percussion by renowned composers like Hugues Dufourt, Tristan Murail and Georg Katzer. 2021 Prodromos Symeonidis received himself a scholarship by the City of Berlin for the composition of a new quartet.

Since 2019 he has a teaching position at the Academy of Music Berlin, division of the Kalaidos University Zurich.

From 2022 he is part of the Jury in the funding program of the City of Berlin for contemporary music ensembles.

© 2023 Prodromos Symeonidis