Myrto Loulaki
My encounter with music happened when I was still in my mom’s tummy, and of course later on as a toddler through her once again and the great system of Carl Orff. When I was 12, I decided that the flute was a good instrument to play with but kept going with the recorder too. At the same age I joined the Greek Radio Children’s choir. In 1997 our conductor asked me to sing Ave Maria (Bach-Gounod) with the Greek Radio Symphony Orchestra at their annual Christmas Concert at Pallas concert Hall as a soloist! Two years later and while continuing my flute, recorder and theory studies I wanted more so I started taking piano and singing lessons too. Among the pedagogical seminars I have been to, the most important ones are the International Kodaly seminars in Hungary’s Kecskemet in 1999 and in 2001. I’ve sung and played as a soloist in several concerts in England, Greece and Hungary, and have won prizes in competitions. Among my major experiences are Dido and Aeneas, Purcell (as Dido, with the Roehampton Chamber Singers at Hampton Court), Amahl, the Night Visitors, Menotti (as Amahl’s mother, with the RCS at Barnes Methodist Church), and several solo performances with the Metapraxis Ensemble. In 2003, I took the plane to London, to study for a BMus in music performance and later an MA in Choral Education. You can currently find me singing with the Metapraxis Ensemble and the BBC Symphony Chorus, while I am also a teacher at PLAY (of which I am the co-founder). Apart from all that, I love exploring and decomposing the meaning of musical performance!. The theatricality and poetry of it are among my main aims… I also love cooking, storytelling, movies, drawing, writting and gazing at my newborn son.
Gregory Emfietzis
I grew up spending quite a lot of my time playing with music, either by creating screeching sounds on the violin (most of the time), or singing in choirs, which offered me the chance to perform in many international festivals, concerts and opera productions, before committing to my grown-up music studies. Later on, I took a degree in Music Science and Art (in Greece), before moving to the UK in 2004 to continue my studies (MA, PhD). I have since been continuously working as (peripatetic and whole class) music teacher, lecturer, and ensemble/orchestra conductor at a number of schools, colleges and universities, and privately. I have also been managing and directing the Metapraxis Ensemble, including planning and delivering series of educational workshops (KS2) in schools and public venues. At the same time I have built a reputable profile as a performer and composer, and have playing with and composing for various musicians ensembles from around the world. If you fancy, you can watch one of my most recent works, a music and shadow puppetry theatre piece based on one of Myrto’s fairytales (supported by the London Symphony Orchestra and the Arts Council) here!