MEET GUITARIST & COMPOSER
SMARO GREGORIADOU
She belongs to the Great of the New Era…
Christoph Schlüren, Neue Musik Zeitung Annual Critics’ Choice 12/2021
Gregoriadou is a virtuoso guitarist, scholar, and she is a stand out who will no doubt excite audiences, while carving her own niche within the classical guitar world. Incredibly fluent technique, refined tone, deep understanding of the style…
Brad Conroy, GUITAR INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE
SCOPE
Greek guitar virtuoso, composer and music pedagogue Smaro Gregoriadou attempts a redefinition of the classical guitar’s sound and technique through the Reinventing guitar project that she introduced in 2009, based on Kertsopoulos Aesthetics platform of inventions. Her innovative approach on interpretation has generated enthusiastic response worldwide. As the eminent American critic Raymond Tuttle put it:
“Gregoriadou’s ‘reinventions’ are leaving the standard classical guitar world and modern tuning behind, at least for the time being. In her own way, Gregoriadou evokes musicians such as Vladimir Horowitz, Glenn Gould, and Wanda Landowska in her willingness—her need, really—to find a new way to express herself and to reanimate the music, without letting innovation become an end in itself.” (FANFARE, Nov/Dec 2012.)
THE JOURNEY SO FAR
Smaro Gregoriadou has studied with distinguished specialists of our time, including pianist-conductor George Hadjinikos, guitarists George Kertsopoulos, Jesus Castro-Balbi, Paul Galbraith and Roberto Aussel; also composers George Sioras, Theodore Antoniou and Dinos Konstandinidis. She has been awarded a Senior Exhibitioner Scholarship to continue her postgraduate classical guitar studies with Carlos Bonnel at the Royal College of Music, London.
She won numerous international music awards both for composition and solo guitar interpretation. She appeared as soloist in Europe, Russia, Canada, the USA, Australia, and China – and collaborated with major orchestras and chamber music groups in Greece and abroad. Her compositions have been premiered and commissioned by important artistic institutions and ensembles worldwide, including ALEA III, Ensemble Octandre, Helsinki Chamber Ensemble, Open Source Guitars, Biennale Rome, Trossingen University of Music, Byzantine and Christian Museum of Athens, and many others. She is a member of the Greek ISCM or Greek Composers Union.
Today she devotes her time mainly to solo guitar performance, music composition and teaching – as well as conducting solo and ensemble classical guitar workshops and multi-disciplinary artistic projects titled Inclusive Interpretation and Functional Technique.
Her highly acclaimed CD albums, A Healing Fire (DE 3582), El Aleph (DE3490), and Reinventing guitar, Vol. I and II (DE 3398, DE3419) were released by the American label DELOS. Her 2019 album SEQUENCES (AN ART RECORDS AAAR006) consists of original compositions for solo guitar by Greek composer Nikos Athanassakis in their first world presentation.
Her composition “Balkan Dances for solo guitar” is available by Divine art.
Smaro’s transcriptions for classical guitar are published by Reinventing Guitar Editions.
