Sunday, November 13, 2022
3:00 P M EST

Apostolos Paraskevas is a classical guitarist and composer as well as an award-winning film director and producer. He has received multiple international awards for his compositions and was nominated for a Grammy Award. He is the only guitarist ever to have a major orchestral piece performed at Carnegie Hall under the direction of Lukas Foss––and the only musician who has performed there in a Grim Reaper outfit. He has made over a dozen recordings of his music and his orchestral music has been performed around the world by numerous symphony orchestras including Albany, Boston Landmarks, Boston University, Newton, National Festival, Atlantic, Odessa, National Greek, Cyprus, Florida International University, Thessaloniki Municipal Symphony orchestras and tonight with the Boston Civic Orchestra. He was the founder and served for 16 years as the artistic director of the International Guitar Congress-Festival of Corfu, Greece. He is a voting member of the Recording Academy (Grammys).

After his undergraduate music studies in Volos he pursued advanced studies in classical guitar with Costas Cotsiolis (diploma, 1990) and Leo Brouwer (Havana 1984, 1988), as well as postgraduate studies in composition with Lukas Foss and Theodore Antoniou (DMA in composition, Boston University, 1998). Paraskevas embarked on a successful career as a guitar soloist and contemporary composer, achieving distinctions in both disciplines: Grammy nomination for Chase Dance (Bridge Records, 1999); first prize for Night Wanderings (Lukas Foss Composition Competition, 2000); first prize for Phygein Adynaton (National Composers Conference, 1997); and numerous prestigious commissions, performances, and publications. Following teaching posts at Northeastern and Boston Universities, Paraskevas has taught since 2001 at the Berklee College of Music in Boston (professor of composition and classical guitar). Although he was struck by focal hand dystonia in 2009, he recovered in 2013 after reconstructing his playing technique.

His eclectic compositional style arises as an idiosyncratic integration of seemingly conflicting influences – from avant-garde approaches to harmonic structure, form, and timbre, to pop-folk modal and rhythmical concepts – amalgamated into a personal evocative musical language, characterized by rhythmic verve, melodic grace, dramatic (and sometimes
unexpectedly humorous) gestures, and ritualistic or theatrical elements. The latter feature has also led Paraskevas to the creation of films, notably the acclaimed I Finally Did It (Gold award, California Film Awards 2010), dealing wittily with Death, a recurring extra-musical theme in his music.

Publishers: Hal Leonard (USA), Bèrben (Ancona, Italy), Schott (Germany), Papagrigoriou- Nakas (Athens, Greece), Silver Sickle Productions (USA), Centaur Records, Bridge Records (USA).
The Groves Dictionary of Music
Costas Tsougras

Mr. Wilson, Jr. holds a BA in Political Science from the University of Notre Dame, and an MFA in Acting from the University of Minnesota/Guthrie Theatre training program. He is a Professor of the Practice in Theatre and Dance at Wheaton College, Norton, MA. He has worked On Broadway (2000 Tony Award-nominated production of Jesus Christ Superstar, and 2018 Tony Award-nominated Iceman Cometh starring Denzel Washington), Off Broadway, as well as performing in regional theaters around the country. He has taught acting, art activism, and lectured at the high schools, colleges, universities and at conferences locally and around the country. Wilson is in his 18th season as a member of the Resident Acting Company and Artistic Staff at Trinity Repertory Company, serves as Trinity’s Coordinator of Activism through Performance, and the Founder of Trinity Rep’s Center for Activism and Performance. Joe has recently directed The Inheritance: Parts One and Two in the Fall of 2022, the 2021 production of A Christmas Carol both at Trinity Rep, An Octoroon by Brandon Jacobs Jenkins at the Gamm Theatre in Warwick, RI, and co-directed Black Odyssey by Marcus Gardley in 2018, also at Trinity. He has been honored by the Rhode Island Black Heritage Foundation, and is a Fox Foundation Fellow for Distinguished Achievement in the Arts administered by the Theatre Communications Group, New York City. This year Joe was honored by the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities with its’ Public Scholar’ Award. The awards states that, ”Joe Wilson Jr. is a force who uses his skills, his talent, and his passion to enact, concretely, what the humanities can do to change the world. He models on stage, in his writing, in his teaching, and in his support of many organizations what he would like to see in our world today. He is the epitome of the better world we can imagine together and he will continue to use the humanities, the common experiences that link all of us, to pull us forward, with him, toward this better world, the one he has dedicated himself to create.” He received the 2019 Providence NAACP’s Medgar Evers Award for Public Service. Most recently, Joe was inducted into the City of Providence 2020 MLK Hall of Fame for Outstanding Service. Joe had the most fun a few years ago serving as a Grand Marshal for PVD Festival held in Providence every June. Last year, Joe was proud to be featured in the Rhode Island PBS Documentary: Black Joy. Finally, Joe is most proud to be the father of his 10 month old fur baby named Sally.

Japanese-American conductor Ken Yanagisawa is the Assistant Conductor of the Boston Civic Symphony and is currently pursuing a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Orchestral Conducting at Boston University under the guidance of James Burton. He will be making his Japanese debut as a guest conductor for a production of Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte with Kansai Nikikai and the Japan Century Symphony Orchestra at the Hyogo Performing Arts Center Japan in February 2023, and most recently served as assistant conductor for the BU Opera Institute productions of Ned Rorem’s Our Town and Mozart’s Così fan tutte as well as for the BU Symphony Orchestra & Symphonic Chorus performance of Brahms’s Ein Deutsches Requiem at Boston Symphony Hall.

Previously, Ken completed a research residency at the Kyoto City University of Arts and received a Master of Music and Professional Studies Certificate in Orchestral Conducting from the Manhattan School of Music. While a student at MSM, he was selected to participate in the Manhattan School of Music / Leonard Slatkin Conductors Project and was subsequently invited to work with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra as a Conducting Fellow in March 2020. He also holds a Bachelor of Arts in Music from Yale University where he received the Joseph Lentilhon Selden Memorial Award and the Stanton Wheeler Award, and prior to Yale he attended the New England Conservatory as an Undergraduate Diploma candidate for Oboe Performance under the tutelage of John Ferrillo.