Janna Polyzoides
Janna Polyzoides was born in Graz, Austria, as the daughter of the musical couple Christos and Katherina Polyzoides. She studied with Sebastian Benda at the University of Music in Graz. Additional influential teachers were Rudolf Kehrer, Alexander Jenner and Eliane Richepin.
Her carrier has led to appearances at renowned festivals, such as Wien modern, the Menuhin festival in Gstaad, the styriarte festival in Graz, the Wiener Festwochen. She has been invited to many famous concert halls, for example the Cologne Philharmony, Wigmore Hall London, Musikhalle Hamburg, the Athens Music Hall, Warsaw Philharmony, the Mozarteum Salzburg (with the Deutsche Kammerakademie Neuss am Rhein), the Konzerthaus and the Musikverein in Vienna. Recently the pianist toured to Switzerland, Germany, Norway, Denmark, Great Britain, Poland, China and the USA.
As a soloist Janna Polyzoides has appeared frequently on radio, television and CD recordings. As a chamber musician she has regularly performed as a member of the „Arcus Ensemble Wien“, and the „Camerata Polyzoides“, formed by all the members of her musical family. Together with her brother, the violinist Demetrius Polyzoides, she has appeared as the internationally recognized Duo Polyzoides. Over the last years she also has had a steady musical association with the cellist Martin Hornstein.
Among the chamber music partners of Janna Polyzoides also have been artists like Daniel Sepec, Christian Altenburger, Eszter Haffner, Ernst Kovacic, with members of the Artis Quartet, Aron Quartett, Gürzenich Quartet and the Kölner Streichsextett and many others.
Janna Polyzoides is a very versatile musician. On one hand she does not miss an occasion to explore historic sounds, playing on period instruments (Hammerklavier, instruments built around 1850), on the other hand she got familiar with the harpsichord already as a child. Her vital interest in contemporary music and her continuous collaboration with composers have resulted in many dedications and first performances of contemporary works, many of which she also has recorded.
Up till now the musical work of Janna Polyzoides has been documented on 24 solo and chamber music CDs. Most recently CDs with Christian Ofenbauer's piano concerto (Radio-Symphony-Orchestra Vienna (ORF), a CD with works by Tchaikovsky, Ravel, Mozart, Ysaÿe, Kreisler, Kroll, Wieniawski with the Duo Demetrius & Janna Polyzoides (Aulos) and, in 2006, a production of 13 solo and chamber music works by the composer Klaus Johns (Extraplatte) and 2007 a CD with the Arcus Ensemble Wien (SKF) with Trios by Carl Frühling, Johannes Brahms and Alexander Zemlinksy have been published.
