Elena Papandreou, ‘a poet of the guitar’ according to The Washington Post, was born in Athens. She studied the guitar with Evangelos Boudounis and Oscar Ghiglia. She also studied with Gordon Crosskey at the Royal Northern College of Music, England and had lessons with Alirio Díaz, Julian Bream, Leo Brouwer and Ruggero Chiesa.
She has won first prizes in the Maria Callas, Gargnano and Alessandria Inter national Competitions, as well as second prize in the Guitar Foundation of America Competition. In 1992 she was honoured by the Academy of Athens with the Spyros Motsenigos Prize.
Papandreou has performed in around 40 countries. Within the ‘Rising Stars’ programme of the European Concert Hall Organisation, she gave concerts at the Vienna Musikverein, the Cologne Philharmonie, Symphony Hall in Birmingham and the Athens Concert Hall. She has also performed at the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall and the Queen Elizabeth Hall. In 1998 she gave her début in the Weill Recital Hall (Carnegie Hall). She is a professor at the University of Macedonia in Thessa loniki, Greece.
She has collaborated with outstanding musicians such as the guitarists Oscar Ghiglia, Alirio Díaz, Roland Dyens, Nikita Koshkin and Evangelos Boudounis, the violinist Leonidas Kavakos and the cellist Leonid Gorokhov. Papandreou has played as a soloist with orchestras in Greece, Italy, Romania, Turkey, Mexico and Singa pore, with conductors such as Daniele Gatti, Lan Shui, Paul Chiang and Miltos Logiadis. Leo Brouwer, Roland Dyens, Nikita Koshkin, Nikos Mamangakis, Giorgos Koumendakis and Evangelos Boudounis have all dedicated works to Elena Papandreou.
www.elenapapandreou.gr/en/
