Portrait: Yiorgos Kaloudis

Yiorgos Kaloudis’s a professional cellist, lyra performer and composer since 1992, with numerous performances, concerts and jazz festivals around the world, and also a highly experienced, multi-instrumentalist, recording artist in dozens of CDs and film productions.

He was born in 1973 in Athens, Greece, and was raised in a musical family. He attended the Athenaeum Conservatory in Athens, where he received his Diploma under the guidance of the cellist Claire Demeulenaere.

The scholarship from the "Fulbright Foundation", in 2002, granted him the opportunity to develop his personal vision and technique on the instrument but also to study composition and improvisation under the guidance of Ted Greene in Los Angeles.

On February of 2005, "DNA LAB_L Records", released Yiorgos's debut solo CD album, "TRUTH". The second album called "ON THE WIND" was released in September of 2009, with the kind support of The J. F. Costopoulos Foundation.
J.S.Bach’s Suites for Solo Cello, will soon be released by Yiorgos, performed on the 4-string Cretan Lyra, in a World Premiere Recording.

Since 2005, as influenced by his Cretan background, he has added the 4- string Cretan Lyra to his performances and recordings, bringing to it his technical understandings of the cello techniques and also the innovative addition of a fourth string, the low C of the cello.

As a cretan lyra soloist he has performed with the orchestras:
In November of 2009 with the Academic Symphony Orchestra Dmitri Shostakovich of St. Petersburg and the choir "Lege Artis", at the Conservatory's Glazunov theatre.
In April of 2010 at the Berlin Philharmonie Kammermusiksaal with the Kamerata Europaea and the choir Ernst Senff Choir.
In October of 2010 at the Athens Concert Hall, with the Cyprus Symphony Orchestra.

In May of 2011 at the opening concert of the "White Nights" Festival of Petrozavodsk, Russia, with the Karelia Philharmonic Orchestra.

In January of 2014 at the Celtic Connections International Robert Burns Concert that took place at the SSE Hydro with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, along with Karine Polwart and Alkinoos Ioannidis.

Yiorgos performs his compositions using his personal technique and different timbres of the cello and the cretan lyra, to produce a greek environment with an extensive use of the Live-Loop-Recording technique during his playing, in a particularly atmospheric ambience with jazz, ambient and soundtrack music elements.

For the last decade he has collaborated to the projects of the songwriter Alkinoos Ioannidis. Since 2011 they both give concerts together in a very unique duet in numerous venues, churches and concert halls around the world, UK, USA, Scotland, France, Russia, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Australia.

 collaborates with Steve Tavaglione, Sylvan Richardson, Alkinoos Ioannidis, Karine Polwart, David Lynch, Stavros Lantsias, Takis Farazis, and the groups “LEMONCELLO”, "FAROS", "FURTUNA" and "THE CHOSEN".