UAE-based Ioannis Potamousis nominated Steinway Artist

Muhammad Yusuf, Features Writer

Ioannis Potamousis described as a “New Colossus of the Keys”, is internationally acclaimed as a charismatic and passionate performer. He has recently been nominated as a “Steinway Artist”.

“Ioannis Potamousis impressed the audience with his powerful and charming performance as well as his ability to create a dialogue with the orchestra,” wrote the Kolner Stadt-Anzeiger of his performance of Beethoven’s Fifth Piano Concerto.

“Great brilliance…unique atmosphere,” said the Cincinnati Post. Instructor of Music and Producer at New York University Abu Dhabi Thaddeus Stegall, commented: “A recital by Potamousis will teach you something new and inspire you to, in the words of John Sexton, play another octave on the piano.” The Steinway Artist title is conferred upon only the best pianists of his or her time, and is a programme handled by Steinway’s Concert and Artist Department. The roster has the names over 2,000 of the most illustrious pianists of all time.

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Potamousis is known for his captivating artistry and introspective, poetic expression. His 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 and, on his Middle Eastern tour, to most major concert halls in Palestine.

He has also performed in all major in all major venues in the United Arab Emirates such as Dubai Opera, The National Theatre, New York University Arts Center and American University in Sharjah, among others. The Dubai appearance included collaboration with the Youth Symphony Orchestra of Dubai and in Abu Dhabi, with the NSO Orchestra.

Potamousis is also the co-founder of “Pollen-spreading the seeds of music” and has organised on behalf with NSO Symphony Orchestra in Abu Dhabi, concerto competitions for young musicians in the UAE. 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. He 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 Doctor of Musical Arts. Recently, he successfully completed a Post Graduate Certificate in Education from Nottingham University. Currently, he is the Head of Keyboard Studies at Brighton College Abu Dhabi and Piano Faculty at New York University in Abu Dhabi.

He says he knew from the age of 13 that he wanted to become a concert pianist. He was born in Athens to a poor family who could not afford a piano. When he was nine, his grandfather bought him a three-octave keyboard, and he found a book and taught himself to play.

With the help of scholarships and international prizes, Potamousis was able to study at the Musikhochschule Koln, Germany, where he achieved “outstanding” marks in his advanced Masters degree.

At 26, he went on to Mannes College of Music in New York, during which time he won first prize at the International Piano Competition in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and the silver medal at the World Piano Competition in Cincinnati. He gained his doctorate at Rutgers University in New Jersey, which enabled him to teach as well as perform.

Steinway & Sons, also known as Steinway, is a German-American piano company, founded in 1853 in Manhattan by German piano builder Heinrich Engelhard Steinweg (later known as Henry E. Steinway). It is known for making pianos of high quality and for inventions within the area of piano development.

Steinway has been granted numerous patents in piano making, with the first in 1857. The company’s share of the high-end grand piano market consistently exceeds 80 per cent. In addition to the flagship Steinway piano line, Steinway markets two other, lower-priced brands of piano sold under the secondary brand names, Boston and Essex.