Toulis Jannis
Son of the cycladitic potter Ananias Toulis, Jiannis Toulis was born in Thessaloniki (Greece), where he began to learn Violoncello by G. Manolas, I. Bianki and R. Dragnev. He continued his cello studies firstly at the Berufsfachschule für Musik in Bad Königshofen (Germany) with Dr. W. Jacksch and then at the Hochschule für Musik “Franz Liszt” in Weimar (Germany) by G. Vieweg. In the same time he studied Viola da Gamba, first by G. Vieweg (Weimar) and Siegfried Pank (Leipzig) and later in the Hochschule für Musik in Detmold Abteilung Münster (Germany) by H. Hickethier. He attended violoncello and chamber music seminars among others by Prof. Krzysztof Sperski (Poland), Prof. Heinrich Schneikart (Austria), Christoph Killian (Switzerland). He is mainly as soloist and chamber music performer active with many concerts and recordings for radio and TV broadcasts in Europe and in the USA. Together with colleagues from the Ionian University Department of Music Studies, he founded the Ionian Early Music Ensemble and the Ionian Piano Quartet. These two ensembles have a great number of concerts in Europe, USA and Asia. He recorded for the Olympics 2004, four string quartets of N.Ch.Manzaros (World Premier) and another 2 CDs with Piano Quartets of F.Mendelssohn Bartholdy, R. Schuman, L.v. Beethoven and J. Brahms (AMICME). With the Ionian Early Music Ensemble he recorded a CD with works of G.Ph. Telemann, D.Purcell and T.Albinoni. As a member of the middle age Ensemble Lirae Cantus, he recorded music of the Greek film music composer Vangelis for the Film “El Greco”. He has also recorded film music for the films: “The Journey” (music by N. Platyrachos) and “FBI Academy” (music by Ralf Kubicek). He worked together with many orchestras like: Sinfonieorchester Wernigerohde, Salonorchester Münster, Essener Universitätsorchester, Ionian University Symphony Orchestra, Harmonia Atenea – The Friends of Music Orchestra, Orchestra of Coulors Athens, Komorni Orchestr Lsi Krejciho as soloist as well. The publisher Panas Music have published the composition for cello solo entitled: «A Funky Exercise» and three songs for mezzo-soprano and cello on poems by the famous German poet of the 19th century H.Heine entitled: «Neuer Frühling«. He is an Associate Professor at the Ionian University Department of Music Studies for violoncello and viola da gamba studies. He teaches in the Summer Music Academy of the Ionian University. He also gave master classes for violoncello in the “Karl Lepinski” Music Academy in Wroclaw (Poland), Toledo State University (USA), Bowling Green State University (USA), Mahidol University (Tailand), University of Applied Sciences of Turku (Finland), Conservatorio di Musica “Stanislao Giacomantonio” (Cosenza, Italy), Barenboim-Said Conservatory (Nazareth, Israel), “Stanislaw Moniuszko” Academy of Music in Gdansk (Poland), Conservatorio Superior de Música “Salvador Seguí” de Castellón (Spain), and the Conservatorio Profesional de Música “Adolfo Salazar” de Madrid (Spain) Conservatorio Superior de Castilla La Mancha in Albacete (Spain). Along with his educational and artistic duties, he is focusing on academic development, strategic planning and management in the music education sector. He was a member of the Working Group 5 of the Polifonia Project which was the biggest European project on professional music training till today, with 55 institutions involved from the field of music training and the music profession in 26 European countries and 4 countries outside Europe, and was jointly coordinated by the Koninklijk Conservatorium Den Haag and the AEC (Association Européenne des Conservatoires, Académies de Musique et Musikhochschulen). From 2015 - 2017 he represented the Ionian University Department of Music Studies at the OMEGA project (Opening More Employment Gates for Art and Music Students), an Erasmus+ KA2 project, coordinated by Yasar University Department of Music (Turkey). He is the General Coordinator of the Mediterranean Network for Music (MedNet4Music).
