Lefteris Kordis
Pianist, Composer, and Inner Circle Music recording artist Lefteris Kordis has established himself as a unique voice in the Mediterranean Jazz genre. He grew up in a multi-cultural area in Elefsis, an ancient town near Athens, Greece. Since the age of four, he studied, performed, and composed based on a wide spectrum of genres including Greek Folk, European Chamber, and Jazz.
He graduated from the Experimental Music Gymnasium and Lyceum of Pallini, the National Conservatory of Athens, the Ionian University, and pursued a Master and a Doctorate at New England Conservatory on Fulbright and Onassis grants.
He has performed in major international venues such as the Carnegie Hall, Panama Jazz Festival, Athens Epidaurus Festival, and Toronto Jazz Festival with music legends Steve Lacy, Sheila Jordan, George Garzone, Jerry Bergonzi, Joe Lovano, Jay Clayton, Vasilis Saleas, Mikis Theodorakis, Vasilis Skoulas, Glykeria, Greg Osby, Panayotis Lalezas, and Robin Eubanks, among others. In 2022, he was filmed accompanying on piano Hollywood actress Julia Ormond on a movie that will be released in 2025.
Lefteris studied with Jazz Guru Charlie Banacos and devoted his doctoral dissertation on Banacos’s groundbreaking music pedagogy. Lefteris is currently Associate Professor at Berklee College of Music, Associate Professor of Jazz and Afro-American Studies at the Ionian University in Greece, Professor of Music at the Hellenic College Holy Cross, and founder of his own pedagogy online platform, the Intergalactic Music Academy. He taught and developed curriculum at the world-renown New England Conservatory (2005 - 2015) and at the Global Jazz Institute (2016-2019), teaching alongside John Patitucci, Danilo Pérez, Terri Lyne Carrington, George Garzone, Joe Lovano, and Dave Liebman. He is the co-director -along with Dimos Dimitriadis, of the "Aqua Jazz,” a program that builds bridges between East Mediterranean folk and jazz musicians.
Lefteris has served as gospel choir director and organist/pianist at the historic Columbus Ave AME Zion Church in Boston and Cambridge and at the Berachah church in Dorchester, MA. He performs regularly with his jazz trio with bassists Brad Barrett and/or John Lockwood and drummer Dor Herskovits, and co-leads the Penny Muse Band, a cross-disciplinary Greek Jazz art-song and Folk music band.
Lefteris has recorded seven albums as a leader and numerous others as a sideman. His new critically acclaimed double CD album “ Aquarelles: Celebrating the Inner Child” is a collection of original sound paintings and it features tenor saxophone jazz legend Jerry Bergonzi on tenor sax, Lefteris Bournias on clarinet, Edmar Colon on soprano sax, Brad Barrett and Jorge Roeder on bass, Dor Herskovits and Eviatar Slivnik on drums, Harris Lambrakis on ney, Isaac Romagosa on guitar, and many other Boston, Athens GR, and New York-based musicians. The record was released in March 2024 by saxophonist Greg Osby’s Inner Circle Music label and it has received astounding reviews.
Panayota Haloulakou
the energetics of the voice, energy medicine
Panayota sings jazz, Greek, and experimental music. She composes songs based on poetry and inspiring texts. Her singing and writing styles have influences from Greek folklore and art songs, chamber music, and the world of jazz and free improvised music.
Her latest projects include the formation of an experimental vocal duet called EquiVox, who released their first recording called Breaking the Spell in February 2022. Also, a series of Adventure Songs based on healing texts by energy healer/performance artist/writer Birds WG. This project is called Inside the Maze and will be released in 2022 as a video series. Her latest discography includes Laconikon: Selected Poems by Odysseus Elytis (released in 2020), which features original music for jazz quintet and small chamber ensembles that include combinations of voice, 5-string violin, cello, yayli tanbur, saxophones, piano, bass, and drums. For this project, she was inspired by the elegant poetry of Odysseus Elytis.
Panayota is the co-leader of the group Penny Muse Band, which performs original compositions and fresh arrangements of Greek pop and folk songs. Additionally, she if the female lead vocalist of the Greek Music Ensemble, a renowned ensemble that presents theme concerts of Greek music in New England and beyond.
As a teenager, Panayota participated in concerts at prestigious venues, such as the ancient Odeon of Herodes Atticus in Athens, when she was a member of the professional choir Fons Musicalis. In those concerts, which had a huge impact on her artistic evolution, she collaborated with Greek artists George Dalaras, Notis Mavroudis, Vassiliki Lavina, and Yiannis Markopoulos, as well as with the Netherlands Philarmonic and Kamerata Orchestras. Additionally, as an undergrad student at the Ionian University in Corfu, Greece, Panayota worked closely with British conductors Peter Seymour and David Blake in significant theatrical productions that she still treasures.
In 2002, Panayota received the Fulbright scholarship to study Jazz Voice Performance at Boston's New England Conservatory. Since then, she has performed with jazz legends and inspirational artists/humans Steve Lacy, Irene Aebi, Sheila Jordan, Joe Lovano, Marty Erlich, and John Lockwood, as well as with rising artists Lefteris Kordis, Roni Eytan, Edmar Colon, Petros Klampanis, Eviatar Slivnik, and Alec Spiegelman. She has also collaborated with American theater director Jackie Romeo, a professor at Emerson College; with popular Greek singers Vasilis Skoulas, Panayotis Lalezas, and George Perris; with dancers, painters, yogis, and energy healers; and with the Berklee College of Music Gospel Choir. She has appeared in major academic venues, concert halls, and festivals in the greater New England, New York, Missouri, Florida, Vermont, Texas, and Greece for musical performances, workshops, and seminars.
Panayota also serves as faculty for Aqua Jazz, a program the builds bridges between folk musicians and jazz improvisers in Greece and the East Mediterranean region. She is the Choir Director of the Greek Chorale Boston, formerly known as the Maliotis Greek Choir. The chorale has performed with Greek folk artist Vasilis Skoulas and has appeared in several seasonal and holiday concerts. Since March 2020, they have focused on song releases through YouTube as well as on a few selected performances.
Panayota maintains a private studio teaching voice, piano, music theory, composition, and improvisation for all ages inspired by the Estill Voice Training System and her teachers-mentors Steve Lacy, Mary Klimek, Dominique Eade, Frank Carlberg, and Allan Chase. She has recorded four albums as a leader/co-leader and has also been a guest vocalist in other artists's recording projects. She has sung in several languages, which has been a lot of fun: Greek, Ancient Greek, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, German, French, and Turkish.
In December, 2020, Panayota began her studies in Eden Energy Medicine close to Julie Fowler. She intends to become a certified practitioner in 2023. She currently leads group classes in-person and in her Zoom room. She has a vision to bridge the worlds of music and energy medicine for healing and to elevate humanity.