George Hadjinikos

George Hadjinikos (born May 3, 1923, in Volos, Greece) is a pianist and conductor resident in the UK.

Biography

Hadjinikos started his studies at the Athens Conservatoire. He later studied at the Mozarteum in Salzburg and in Munich, Hamburg, and Châtel-Censoir; his teachers included Edwin Fischer, Johann Nepomuk David, Carl Orff, Paul Hindemith, Heinrich Neuhaus, Alice Pashkus, Eduard Erdmann, and George Chavchavadze.

He has been awarded the Lilly Lehmann Medal of the Mozarteum International Foundation.

Passionately committed to musical education, Hadjinikos has combined his activities as a performer with a career as a teacher, and from 1961 to 1988 taught at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. Among his more prominent former pupils are Gilbert Biberian, Paul Galbraith, Richard Ward-Roden and Teodor Currentzis. In 1963 he established the "New Manchester Ensemble". In his occasional writings, Hadjinikos mainly concerns himself with the issue of musical interpretation: a set of articles under the title 'Logic and Foundations of Musical Interpretation' has been followed by a series on the 'Essence and Origins of Musical Interpretation'.

As a performer, Hadjinikos has displayed an affinity for twentieth century music. He was the soloist in the first performances of the Schoenberg Piano Concerto to be given in Stockholm, Paris, Hamburg, and Geneva; in Manchester he conducted the first local performance of Orff's Carmina Burana, and directed from the piano the local premieres of Schoenberg's Ode to Napoleon and Pierrot Lunaire. He has toured the Soviet Union and Brazil, among other countries, and has made three tours to India.

kalkottas authority

George Hadjinikos is an authority on the works of the Greek composer Nikos Skalkottas (1904-1949), of whom he has been an energetic and committed exponent. He played the solo part in the world premiere of the composer's Second Piano Concerto, which took place in Hamburg in 1953 under the baton of Hermann Scherchen. This was the performance which caused the BBC to take an interest in the work, leading to its subsequent broadcast and the publication of Hans Keller's historic article in "The Listener" entitled 'Nikos Skalkottas: An Original Genius'. Within a few years, Hadjinikos had performed the work in Stockholm, Vienna, Athens, Zurich, London (BBC Symphony Orchestra), and Berlin (Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra).

In December 1954, Hadjinikos discovered several lost Skalkottas manuscripts in a second-hand bookshop in Berlin: the works unearthed were the Octet, two String Quartets, and the First Piano Concerto -- in which he was the soloist when the work was given its world premiere in Athens in 1978. Hadjinikos has edited several of Skalkottas' orchestral scores for the Skalkottas Archives in Athens.

In 1969, within the London and Oxford Bach Festival, he conducted the world premiere of Skalkottas' Third Piano Concerto, played the world premiere of the 'Cycle of Five Works for Wind and Piano' and the London premiere of the Bassoon Sonata. In 1979, he conducted in an EBU concert in Copenhagen the 'Ulysses Symphony' and the world premiere of the Skalkottas Double Bass Concerto. While in Manchester, Hadjinikos conducted the local premieres of Skalkottas' Andante Sostenuto and Classical Symphony for Large Wind Orchestra.

Hadjinikos was invited in 1983 at the instigation of Josef Rufer, formerly Schoenberg's assistant in Berlin, to present Skalkottas in a special recital at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles (at that time the location of the Arnold Schoenberg Institute). In December 2006, Hadjinikos' book about Skalkottas and his music, accompanied with two CDs, came out. He is currently preparing a book on the unrealized general importance of Mozart's operatic recitatives.

Recordings

* Skalkottas, Nikos: Concerto No.2 for Piano and Orchestra; George Hadjinikos (piano), Hamburg Radio Symphony Orchestra cond. Hermann Scherchen (1953). Arkadia CDGI 768.1 (CD 1993)

Editions

* N. Skalkottas: 'Concertino for two Pianos and Orchestra'

Writings

Books

* Hadjinikos, George: 'Nikos Skalkottas - A renewed approach to musical thought and interpretation' (Nefeli Publishing 2006, in Greek language, contains two gratis CDs with own interpretations conducting or playing)

Articles

* Hadjinikos, George: 'Nikos Skalkottas, Hellas and Dodecaphony' [Ellas kai Dodekaphonia] , contribution to 'A Little Dedication to Nikos Skalkottas's [Mikro Aphieroma ston Niko Skalkotta] , in Bulletin of Critical Discography [Deltio Kritikis Discographias] , 10/13, Athens, 1974, p. 212.

References

* Keller, Hans: 'Nikos Skalkottas: An Original Genius', in The Listener, No. 52/134, 9 December 1954, p. 1041

External links

* [http://www.egta.co.uk/content/hadjinikos A conversation with George Hadjinikos] with Graham Wade at egtaguitarforum.org
* [http://sg1-c813.uibk.ac.at/horton/hadjinikos.html Biography]