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The Nemitsas Prize 2011 is tonight being
awarded at Cyprus’s most official venue,
the Presidential Palace, and by the President
himself; a sign of highest respect to the mu-
sicians who constitute the best Cyprus has
to offer to the international music scene…
our country could not have been left unaf-
fected by the many unexpected and unpleas-
ant problems facing the entire world today.
However, culture –celebrations and cultural
events, such as this one tonight– is food for
the soul. It is something that must be encour-
aged and promoted, even during the hardest
of times, to send the message that life does
go on in spite of all the difficulties and that it
does, eventually, triumph.
Mr Nemitsas stressed the colossal importance
of the arts, especially music, in the develop-
ment of culture, giving particular praise to the
piano. He thanked the Protocol Department and
staff of the Presidential Palace for their assis-
tance, as well as Andy Bargily and Display Art
for the beautiful set and the general presenta-
tion of the event.
Cyprien Katsaris
Cyprien Katsaris, the French-Cypriot pianist
and composer, was born in Marseilles in 1951
and spent his childhood in Cameroon. He first
began to play the piano at the age of four.
A graduate of the Paris Conservatoire, he won
the International Young Interpreters Rostrum-
UNESCO (Bratislava 1977) and the First Prize
at the International Cziffra Competition (Ver-
sailles 1974); he was the only western-Europe-
an prize-winner at the 1972 Queen Elisabeth of
Belgium International Competition.
His international career includes performances
with many of the world’s greatest orchestras:
The Berlin Philharmonic, Staatskapelle Dres-
den, The Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra,
Cleveland Orchestra, The Royal Concertge-
bouw Orchestra (Amsterdam), The Philharmo-
nia (London), The NHK Symphony Orchestra
(Tokyo), Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra, the
Philadelphia Orchestra, and others.
He has collaborated with world-renowned con-
ductors such as Leonard Bernstein, Kurt Masur,
Cyprien Katsaris’s performance