Kostis Tsioulakis

Kostis is an award-winning composer (Bristol Museum Music Competition in collaboration with Natural History Museum) with his piece "Tears of a Lion", assigned to the photograph of Bence Máté "Fire on the Pantanal". He started classical piano lessons at the age of 5, which resulted in a Diploma with Distinction, while he studied jazz and contemporary composers as well. He also studied counterpoint and fugue forms. After graduating from the Music Secondary School of Western Athens, he studied Archaeology & History at the University of Athens, whilst he continued studying acoustic composition and orchestration. During those university-years he formed the ethnic-jazz band "Checkmate in Two Flats", which has launched 4 albums, and has collaborated with many established musicians all over Greece and Europe, and to which he contributed as composer, pianist, drummer and cajon player. He has also recorded more than 10 albums in Greece, UK and Ireland. After graduating from Athens he taught piano, classical harmony, jazz harmony and orchestration in 3 conservatories in Greece. In addition he has worked with several choirs as piano accompanist. In 2009 he started a Master's degree in Film Scoring at Bristol University (UK) being taught, among others, by Dr Martin Kiszko (Film Scoring), Professor John Pickard (contemporary composition/orchestration) and William Goodchild (media composition). During that period Kostis also received conducting lessons by the American composer and former assistant of John Williams, Jean Hasse. After graduating from this Film Scoring Master's degree with Distinction, he got offered a place for a PhD in Acoustic Composition for Symphony Orchestra in Bristol University. Alongside finishing his PhD in composition exploring the application of polyrhythmic textures and Eastern modes on Western musical instruments under the supervision of Drs. Neal Farwell (UK) and Michael Ellison (USA), Kostis continues scoring for many Feature/Short films/video projects and video games. He's is also giving seminars and lectures at the university related to his work, and leading the acoustic composition workshops of the music department. During the last 4 years, Kostis has scored over 20 short films, documentaries and computer games, while also collaborating with Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts in London. He has performed with Bristol Ensemble in Colston Hall as a piano soloist in a concert organized by the BBC, which he also orchestrated in collaboration with Verity Lunn. Kostis has presented his compositional work in several music conferences around the UK. Recently he attended a Mastercourse in Sweden with the American composer Bruce Broughton (California) during which he recorded his new work La Femme qui Chant with the 'NEO ensemble', conducted by B. Broughton.