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Iraklis Vavatsikas

Iraklis Vavatsikas was born and raised in Thessaloniki. He took his first lessons on accordion in 1978 under Vasilis Simitsiadis and in 1982 he continued his studies at the accordion class of Kostas Aroutzidis at "New Conservatory of Thessaloniki" where he graduated with "excellent" in 1992. In 1993 he started practicing the bayan (the classical accordion) and took lessons from Viatcheslav Semyonov (Russia). At the same time he is being active with Greek music, composing songs, orchestrating and performing in more than 300 albums in collaboration with Greek musicians and composers. During 1995-1996 he is being member of the State Orchestra of Greek Music. He starts creating educational material for the classical accordion based on the Greek music tradition. This is how the idea of writing the "Galazio biblio", a learning method for accordion based on Greek traditional music, is born. He also composes 21 etudes in classical style, original works, many transcriptions and arrangements of classical works for his students. 

He has created original duos like "Accordion and folk clarinet" with Giorgos Kotsinis, "Accordion and violin" with Kyriakos Gouvendas, "For voice and accordion", original ensembles like "Smirni - Buenos Aires" and "Conversation with Antonis Amiralis". Since 2008 he is occupied with the revival of an extinct instrument which was present in Greece until 1940 - the Armonika (Fisa, Mesofonia). 

He became acquainted with the diatonic bandoneon of Argentina in 1992, acquiring the first instrument that ever arrived in Greece. He started practicing the instrument and studying the tango, having more serious motivations in 2010, with the highlight of composing the music for Roberto Cossa's play "Na Nonna" under the direction of Dimitris Piatas in 2012. 

His discography includes: "Karavi kardia" with Kostas Pavlidis (1994), "Pes mou psixi" with Morfo Tsaireli (1999), "For voice and accordion" with Morfo Tsaireli, "Nea gi" by Dimitris Tsekouras (2001), "Xroma" with Eleni Tsaligopoulou (2004), "To kleidi" with Manolis Lidakis (2004), "I kardia tou ktinous" soundtrack, orchestral music for the movie of Renos Charalambidis (2005), "La Nonna" soundtrack, bandoneon solo for the theatrical play of Roberto Cossa (2012).