COSTAS COTSIOLIS

Greece

master classes
jury

Costas Cotsiolis is nowadays considered as one of the greatest of our time.

Costas Cotsiolis is nowadays considered one of the greatest of our time, thanks to his tours all over the world. In 1972, at the age of 15 he started his career, playing the ”concerto de Aranjuez" with the Athens State orchestra. Since 1977 he is prof. at the Athens Conservatory and since 2023 at the ACCM (Athens Conservatoire College of Music). Since 1978 he is a founder and director of the "Volos International Guitar Festival" (Greece), which has moved to Athens conservatoire ACCM as “Athens International Guitar Festival”

For his activities, he was awarded by the Academy of Sciences and Arts of Greece in 1979. In 1998 he became an Honorary Citizen of Dallas (Texas-USA). Since 2012 he is Artistic director of the GuitarArt Festival of Belgrade (Serbia). Also, he became an honorary member of the EGTA-Germany, and D'Addario artist. In 2017 he was awarded the degree of "Doctor Honoris Causa" by the Ionian University (Greece).

He played in concert halls like the Grand Auditorium Radio France, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Concert Hall BBC, Palais de Beaux Arts Bruxelles, Palais de Congres de Paris, Philarmonie St. Petersburg etc. and collaborated with many orchestras such as RTBF Bruxelles, BBC concert orchestra, Radio symphony Frankfurt, the "Toscanini" Pomeriggi musicali, etc.

He collaborated in concerts with artists like Astor Piazzolla, Mikis Theodorakis, John Williams, Jean-Jaques Kantorow, Stanley Jordan and others.

Composers like Leo Brouwer, Sergio Assad, Ernesto Cordero and many others dedicated works to him. He gave masterclasses at many universities like "Mozarteum", "Ferenc Liszt", Central Conservatory Beijing, Manhattan school of music N.Y. etc. He has played mostly in all guitar festivals including Esztergom, Liege, Havana, Cordoba, Koblenz, Iserlohn, GFA etc. He has published CDs in Sony, EMI classics and GHA (Echo Classic award).