YANNIS MAVRIDIS

He was born in 1957 in Almaty, Kazakhstan, to a family of musicians. His musical education started at the Special Music School “K.Baiseitova” – first with O.Shulpyakov, then with Prof. V.Hess, who was his teacher also at the Kazakh State Conservatoire “Kurmangazy”. Then followed postgraduate studies at the Moscow Conservatoire “Tchaikovsky” with outstanding pedagogue Prof. B.Belenky.

Back in Kazakhstan from 1983 until 1989 Yannis Mavridis worked as a Concertmaster for the Kazakh state symphony orchestra, and in 1989 new string quartet was founded, in which he played the first violin. One year later the quartet was named “Kazakh State String Quartet”, and performed in USSR and abroad – in Germany, Italy, Turkey. At this time the quartet also made recording of the String Quartet No.3 by Kazakhstan composer V.Novikov.

From his soloist activities can be mentioned the first performance of the Concerto-Poeme by S.Kibirova (1982, Kazakh state symphony, conductor R.Salavatov, also with the same cast was recorded for LP). In 1983 this work was chosen for the program of All-union festival of soviet music in Gorky city (soloist Y.Mavridis, Gorky philharmonic, conductor People’s Artist of the USSR I.Gusman) He also was lucky to perform with another People’s Artist – O.Dimitriadi (Tchaikovsky’s Concerto with the Moscow Symphonic Orchestra of Cinematography).