Janna Polyzoides was born in Graz as the daughter of the musical couple Christos and Katherina Polyzoides and is living in Vienna. She studied with Sebastian Benda at the University of Music in Graz. Additional influential teachers were Rudolf Kehrer, Alexander Jenner, Eliane Richepin and György Kurtág.
Her career has led to appearances at festivals, such as Wien modern, the Menuhin festival in Gstaad, the "styriarte" festival in Graz, the Wiener Festwochen. She has been invited to many concert halls, for example the Cologne Philharmony, Wigmore Hall London, Musikhalle Hamburg, Athens Music Hall, Warsaw Philharmony, Konzerthaus and Musikverein Vienna and the Mozarteum Salzburg. Recently the pianist toured Switzerland, Germany, Norway, Denmark, Great Britain, Poland, China, Japan 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 members of her family. Together with her brother, violinist Demetrius Polyzoides, she has appeared as the internationally recognized Duo Polyzoides. Over the last years (1998-2009) she also has had an ongoing musical association with the cellist Martin Hornstein.
Among the chamber music partners of Janna Polyzoides also have been artists like Daniel Sepec, Rainer Honeck, Erich Höbarth, Ernst Kovacic, Christian Altenburger, François Benda, Gerald Pachinger, Matthias Schorn, with members of the Artis Quartet, Aron Quartet, Klangforum Vienna, Gürzenich Quartet, Cologne String Sextet and many others.
Janna Polyzoides does not miss an occasion to explore historic sounds, playing on period instruments. On the other hand her profound 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.
Until now the musical work of Janna Polyzoides has been documented on 30 solo and chamber music CDs. Her most recent CD publications are Christian Ofenbauer's piano concerto with the Radio-Symphony-Orchestra Vienna (ORF), the Duo Demetrius & Janna Polyzoides (Aulos) and, in 2006, a double CD of 13 solo and chamber music works by the composer Klaus Johns (Extraplatte), 2007 the Arcus Ensemble Wien with Trios by Carl Frühling, Johannes Brahms and Alexander Zemlinksy (SKF) and 2008 a triple solo CD with piano compositions by Thomas Heinisch and Christian Ofenbauer (einklang_records), which was nominated for the "ORF-Pasticcio-Award" and the German Record Critics' Award. In February 2012 a CD (Neos) with works of the famous contemporary composer Friedrich Cerha has been released.
http://www.jannapolyzoides.com/
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