Portrait Nikos Skalkottas

Greek violinist and composer Nikos Skalkottas belongs to the “great but unknown” of 20th century music. Skalkottas studied composition with Philipp Jarnach – Kurt Weill’s teacher – and then joined Arnold Schönberg’s master class. He was considered one of the most talented from this circle – however, during his lifetime he remained almost unperformed. Earning a living as a violinist at the state orchestra in Athens, almost none of his works had been published before his early death. With his portrait – CD (published by Ensemble Modern Media in 2009) Ensemble Modern pianist Ueli Wiget already attended to the untimely deceased composer whose unique style results from combining tonality, atonality and dodecaphony with jazz idioms and elements of Greek folklore music. The Ensemble Modern is now dedicating its next ›Happy New Ears‹ Concert on 31 May 2011 to Nikos Skalkottas (Oper Frankfurt, 8:30pm).