Iossif Valette

Iosif Vallet was born in 1968. At the age of eight he won a prize in the student piano competition 'The Friend'. He studied piano at the Piraeus Conservatory, the Hellenic Conservatory and the Palladium Conservatory of Athens with Fifi Matou from whose class he received the piano diploma with honors and 1st prize at the age of twenty.

At the same time he studied chamber music theory with: Andreas Carbone, Eleftherios Papastavrou, Konstantinos Kydoniatis and Yiannis Vatikiotis. He studied musicology and music pedagogy at the Department of Music Studies of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and graduated in 1993 with a thesis on the work of Chopin. In between he took piano lessons from the Bulgarian pianist Filippina Filippova in Thessaloniki and Sofia. In 1991 he attended masterclasses on the Alexander technique in London with Lois Philips (F.R.A.M.) and John Crawford in chamber music. In the same year he collaborated as a soloist with the young State Orchestra of Thessaloniki. As a pianist he has given recitals and participated in concerts with works of contemporary music (A.P.Th, K.O.Th, I.F.A, O.M.M.Th, F. Nakas, Heraklion Festival, Loia Music Festival, Vafopouleio, Biennale '99, etc.) gave lectures, seminars and participated in conferences on the interpretation of contemporary works.
In 2000 he received the diploma with excellence and 2nd prize with the distinguished composer Thodoros Antoniou. In 2006 he participated in the Darmstadt summer academy, and attended composition classes with: Georges Aperghis, Toshio Hosokawa, Beat Furrer and Helmut Lachenmann. He also presented the electronic music project Homo Reus at the composers' forum. In 2010, he completed his doctoral thesis in Opera Composition from the Department of Music Studies, Athens, with the composer Christos Samaras.

His works have been performed in Athens, Thessaloniki, Heraklion, Rome, Boston, Brussels, Luxembourg and Darmstadt, by well-known ensembles such as the Hellenic Contemporary Music Orchestra, the ALEA III Orchestra, the Melos Brass Ensemble, the Orpheus Soloists Orchestra, and the of KOA woodwinds. He also collaborated with renowned artists and conductors such as, Angeliki Kathariou, Tasos Apostolou, Konstantia Gourzi, Maria Milolidaki, Sarah Davis, Miltos Logiadis, Alkis Baltas, Titos Gouvelis, Lorenda Ramou, Vicky Stylianou, Lola Totsiu, Michalis Kontaxakis, Dionysis Mallouchos etc. He also participated in the OMMA Contemporary Music Workshops and the 2003 international composition competition in Boston as a finalist. In 2005, he won the 1st prize in the G. A. Papaioannou composition competition, the 1st prize in the Thessaloniki Opera Competition 'Pais opera', and the prize of the festival 'Synthermia'. In 2006 he received an order from OMMA for the composition of the one-act opera LXIr. In 2011, his works for violin and piano were presented on ERT (Third program). In 2012 he staged the performance 'Journey with an upside-down pedal' with leading pianists in Athens and Thessaloniki, a recital about the life of pianists directed by Esther Andre Gonzalez, which became a radio disc in 2013. In June 2012 the opera was staged of 'Freud for her' from the Opera House, directed by Al. Euclid.

His works, like the textbook Morphology & Analysis, are published by Panas publications. Since 2001 he is a member of the Union of Greek Musicians. He taught as a theoretician at the Music Department of the AUTH and theoretically at the Music School of Ilium – a Musical Theater ensemble and Contemporary Music Workshop (until today), at the Municipal Conservatory of Piraeus and the Hellenic Conservatory.

The recent recording and release on CD of his cycle of works for piano entitled "Upside Down Pedal" based on a poetic idea by Elena Kyritsis by the IRIDA classical company with the interpretation of important pianists, his doctoral thesis on opera composition, the operas that he has composed and the considerable experience he has gained, his pieces for voice and those that have been awarded from time to time, his work with the students at the Music School of Ilium and the performances they put on there, the uniqueness and the valuable contribution to Music of these Schools, his participation in the journal of the Union of Greek Musicians POLYTONON, the importance and necessity of its continuation as well as the problems that exist, were the topics that occupied us in our discussion.

At the same time, we had the pleasure of listening to several excerpts from his works. From the cycle for piano "Inverted Pedal" the Moments no 1 and Prelude no 4, from the "Written" for voice and ensemble the Prologue, from the "Miniatures" for flute and piano no. 5, from the opera "Mycenae" Give me your hands, from "Etude pour Six" for instrumental ensemble the Introduction, from "Rumeurs et visions" for voice and brass ensemble the Finale and from opera "Freud for her" the Introduction.