St. Petersburg, January 5, 2010I met Alkinoos Ioannidis at the rehearsals and immediately shaped a very positive impression for the artist and person. He was warm, open-minded and kind, possessing every passage of his music and knowing exactly what he wanted.Studying his scores and the material he provided me with, I was astonished by both his solid orchestrating knowledge, as well as by the inspiring passages and the mastery by which his compositions were developed in terms of drama, providing me with what I always expect a composer to do: traveling me to his world and forcing me to concentrate listening to his ideas. He knows very well how to use the choir and certainly he has succeeded in combining it with the orchestra.Mr. Ioannidis is a rare case of composer-performer. For the needs of this concert, he played four instruments (lute, guitar, bass-flute and percussion) and sung many of his passages. I highly appreciate this quality as I believe that a composer who participates in the performing process of his work has the advantage to better control his compositions and at the same time inspire the rest of the performers.

The concert had amazing success: the audience, the choir and the orchestra gave a very long applause. I also want to underline the respect by which Alkinoos Ioannidis approached such a demanding audience: as the choir text was written in Greek language, he engaged professionals who translated every word to Russian in the program notes.

The “Lege Artis” choir has great experience in performing contemporary music. During the previous years we premiered works by composers such as K. Penderecki, A. Pärt, S. Slanimsky, Y. Falek, A. Kneifel etc. I am pleased to say that Alkinoos Ioannidis can equally stand next to such masters.

Music goes through a rough time nowadays, and I observe a great need for a new music, based of course in the laws of the great masters but at the same time freshened by new ideas and ideals. In my opinion, Mr. Ioannidis leads at the present time a quality path of innovation which will please all kinds of audience and inspire new composers.

Boris G. Abalian,
Honored Worker of Arts of Russian Federation
Conductor and Artistic Director of the Lege Artis Choir

 

Source: http://www.alkinoos.gr/en/archive/texts/171-letter-by-boris-g-abalian-text-in-english-only.html