ALEX DEMETRIOU

Alex Demetriou was born in London to Hungarian and Greek-Cypriot parents. He began to study the piano at the age of three, first under the Suzuki Institute, giving solo performances as a child in the Queen Elizabeth Hall, the Sheldonian Theatre Oxford, St. John's Smith Square and Holland. He then studied with Roshan Magub, pupil of Alfred Brendel and Head of Keyboard at the Purcell School. He gained a full music scholarship to the City of London School where he performed the Grieg Piano Concerto. For five years Alex studied with Mark Swartzentruber, pupil of Maria Curcio.

From 1996 to 1999, he attended the University of East Anglia, studying piano with Christopher Green-Armytage, and holding major performance awards in two successive years - the Barry McBeath Scholarship and the George Alfred Norman Watkins Scholarship. He was selected to represent the School of Music in two successive annual concerts and graduated in 1999 with a BA (Hons) in Music. He then spent a year in Paris studying with Maciej Pikulski, accompanist to Felicity Lott and Jose van Dam, before returning to UEA to complete a Masters Degree in Musical Performance, which he achieved with Distinction.

Alex is active as soloist, chamber musician, accompanist and teacher. As soloist he has performed Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue in Norwich Cathedral, Beethoven's Choral Fantasia in St.Andrew's Hall Norwich, as well as recitals in all the major venues of Norfolk and Suffolk including the John Innes Centre, King of Hearts, Assembly House Norwich, Guildhall Bury St. Edmunds and the Town Hall, Aylsham. In the field of chamber music he has performed with leading trios and duos, Atsuko Negami (violin) and Evgeny Chebykin (one of the leading horn players of his generation).

Recently he has been partnering the brilliant winner of the Enesco International Violin Competition, Jeanine Thorpe. They were invited to give a recital in the Norfolk and Norwich Festival last May, and have also given many concerts around Norfolk and Suffolk, which have been very well received.

In 2006 Alex will give recitals in the UK and Germany with the Cellist Annegret Hanslik, while in 2007 he will appear with the Con Tempo Quartet of Romania.

Alex holds a piano teaching post at Norwich School and has a number of private pupils of all ages. He has a vast compact disc collection spanning all genres, with a particular love of historical and 'live' recordings, of which those by Sviatoslav Richter, Jorge Bolet and Wilhelm Furtwangler hold a special place.