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Athina explains why a classical piano recital now, while on a steep, time and energy consuming entrepreneurial career.
"Have you ever felt a calling to do something perilous and risky like bungee jumping or sky diving? This is how this
recital feels like to me....."
Athina, what is your affiliation to classical music?
What could prompt an active, buddying entrepreneur to give a recital with some of the most challenging and emotionally rewarding
pieces of classical music ever written for the piano?
Athina explains...
"Music is my life, one way or another...I love listening to my Ipod on the move on shuffle mode with an eclectic list
of pieces across genres - from Xenakis to Radiohead, Offspring, Rage against the machine and loads of jazz. Or chilling out
with a glass of red wine at home listening to Rachmaninoff's 3rd concert for piano, Opera and pre-classical music. And, of
course, going to concerts around London to listen to musique extraordinaire from new and old bands; my dearest friends John
McMahon and Nikos Pandis are just some of the people I have to thank for these enriching and mystifying experiences..."
You are not the typical, professional classical piano performer, your main occupation is Business Psychology...
You completed your Executive MBA at London Business School just last year!
So, music is currently a type of a hobby, how do all of these fit in your life simultaneously?
Athina explains...
"Psychology, Business and Music are very closely related, since they all share three basic elements: emotions, people
as well as numbers & metrics.
Psychology is all about understanding people and "classifying" them and analysing them to make better sense
of their decisions, actions, emotions thus help them ultimately expand and grow. Business is also a lot about people and systems.
Business is an artificial way of structuring human interactions based on commonly agreed/negotiated definitions of monetary
value, which, however, springs from people's emotional decisions.
Music, finally, is the mirror of human perception and auditory cognition to manipulate people's emotions.
Classical music, in particular, as well as the popular music which is the "thinned down" version of classical
music follow the brain's rules of harmony, expectation and anticipation with the ultimate goal of offering pleasure through
patterns of excitation and relaxation.
Make no mistake, music is not my main occupation at the moment, but I do practice around 20 hours a week for this recital,
this is the only way to pull this trick through after a 10 year break!!!Mind you, I just started playing again in July this
year actually......."
So, Athina and the classical piano, a 30 years' love story....?
So, why did you decide to take a long break from music and come back now....?
Athina explains...
"Going back to music earlier this year was an inevitable choice.
Music had occupied more than two thirds of my life between the age of 6 and 24; I was very fortunate to have had a very
strict and perfectionist - mad we would call her nowadays, actually - piano teacher, Mrs Pantelidou. Kate took me on as a
severe "problem' student at the age of 9, since my first piano teacher had apparently been a disaster!!, just to quote
me a prodigy child in less than 2 months and to put me on the line for my first recital in less than 2 years' time. The memory
of that shocking September day is hard to forget even nowadays...
I decided to leave music after 18 years of training, 4 degrees in composition, piano, choir conducting at one of the best
Greek music conservatories, electro acoustic composition and Psychology of Music research and applications. I was, at the
same time, studying towards my Psychology degree and doing a lot of work with different groups of people, i.e. children with
brain palsy, hearing impairments, autism and Down syndrome as well as doing my practicum at psychiatric hospitals and rehabilitation
units. There was something about saving the world that attracted me to choosing the path I chose. It was also the fact that
I did not want to become yet another lab experiment- I had seen how difficult the lives of prodigy children can be, full of
demands and deadlines. I decided to carve out my own path, instead, using Psychology as my platform..."
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