Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Composer's Lounge Nikolas wins 1st prize in an International Competition!

Here's the press release for the event:



You can listen to the full work, with me and Greek pianist Myrto Akrivou in the following youtube video:



And, if I may spam a bit:

• Buy the recording from CDBaby, or iTunes, or Amazon
• Buy the score from our website, or grab a bundle of two copies (being a duet) for 33,33% less from HERE
• Finally, you can always share the news with anyone interest. The video with the full performance is a fine way to do that, without the need for anyone to buy anything...

And in a separate post I'd like to say that I'm extremely happy with this! Not only I won the prize (which includes a nice sum of money as well as the fame that comes with it), but the work seems to be appreciated from anyone who listens... I do hope to get quite a few performances this and the next year... Who knows... perhaps it will be a part of the duo repertoire...

Here's to wishing...

EDIT: But I do need to thank the pianist you see on the video, Myrto Akrivou. She did a great job. Not only she played her part, took part in the video, but she offered suggestions for the performance (to which I'll admit that I think that composers generally do a lousy job performing their own works), and even proposed a couple of things, very timidly, for the music and scores which I accepted straight away. Thus the score has a dedication for her!

And the score wouldn't be complete without the artwork from Piero Pierini. The guy is a real artist and is doing an amazing job! If you visit the links you can preview pages of the score and can see examples of his art. It's incredible, if I may say so...

I doubt that I would've won if it wasn't for these two people! So, while I know that most likely they won't be reading this: Thank you! ^_^

Congratulations!!!

This is the Composers Forum after all. The award wasn't for piano playing or teaching, so this is the proper place for it. I'm sure that many, especially those that pass through quickly, never read the teacher or pianist forums.

Let me add how much I admire Nikolas for being so patient with the many beginner and amateur composers on this section, answering their questions, listening to their compositions. It is more remarkable in light of his new lofty perch as award winner. It took me quite a while on Piano World before I learned just how accomplished the new award winner was, and that was before this latest award.

So congratulations again.

Party on dudes and dudettes...

Again, I am very pleased for you, Nikolas, and I hope the success will open more professional doors for you.

Double Congratulations!

* for winning with your compositions
* For making a actual performance what works. Composing is one, playing it is yet another thing !

It's not really my taste yet I liked your performance. So, great work.

Thank you SO MUCH for this!

It really means a lot!

You see I started using the Internet at a rather late stage of my life, around 10 years ago... (so at the age of 25 already, which is a tad late). I was introduced to a great online community (which still have my homepage) and I learned so much from them... I still get to ask them no matter what it is. They just help out!

And thus this is how I 'grew up' in the internet: Hoping to help out... I hope that I'll be able to carry on doing that, even though this March has been insane and I was unable to keep up at all with the March DEPOSITORY thread... so sorry about that!

Congrats Nikolas

Congradulations! This is very exciting!

Chopin? Liszt? Rachmaninoff?

... are definitely exceptions. It seems these days that composing has become somewhat removed from performing. I know that I could spend many hours honing my playing abilities or I can spend time composing. I've spent a lot of time learning my own pieces, but there are only 24 hours in a day and I need to sleep.

I seem to recall already congratulating Nikolas on this. Is this a new thread? If not then my apologies for not stating this before, Congratulations Nikolas, I listened to your piece and really enjoyed it. That's some wonderful work.

This is quite annoying, and idiotic. This thread is supposed to give signs of my joy about the award, etc. I already had made a thread in PC (where Steve posted, so it's ok ;)), but Sand tiger made another thread here in the composers forum to prompt me to make one here as well. And thus I did.

And I explained a few things to my way of thinking, and did even add the word "generally" to show that it's not 100% that this is happening.

Yet, all you had to say was this?

Generally I try to ignore people like you, but in this case and in this thread I made an exception! don't count on me cross posting you anymore!

This is a new thread and you've already congratulated me in PC. But thanks again. Mark brought it back "to light" (Thanks Mark!)...

Congrats Nikolas! What a wondeful accomplishment!

This is pretty awesome. Good job.

Please do ignore me. I will not miss your posts.

Do you understand the meaning of the term "cross post"?

Nikolas: I try to avoid jumping into things between other people, but sometimes.....

There was nothing wrong with Poly's post here. I think you must have taken it some wrong way, probably because of a mindset from other discussions (probably justified) but I think here it led you a little astray. His post was just a small humorous observation (which made me smile). I doubt he meant to crap on you.

I certainly enjoy his posts. Nikolas is one of the best contributors to these forums.

That's also how I took it, which is why I made an attempt to explain it. I also think Nikolas may have been showing a bit of self deprecation because it's pretty obvious he's a heckuva player. To bring the concept to present day Steven Hough has composed some pretty amazing piano music and lo and behold he plays them quite well. Still I stand by my assertion that both occupations are full time endeavors.