Δημήτρης Τσάκας - Dimitris Tsakas  c.v.

Dimitris Tsakas was born in Greece in 1970.
He started playing music at the age of eight, studied classical guitar and music theory. In 1989 he got his degree in classical guitar with grade excellent and distinction. In 1991 he started playing the alto saxophone and after two years he received a scholarship from BERKLEE COLLEGE OF MUSIC where he studied from 1994 to 1995 jazz saxophone under the guidance of Andy Mc Ghee, George Garzone and private lessons with Jerry Bergonzy.

Upon his return to Greece he performed as a saxophone player with a lot of top Greek jazz artists like George Kontrafouris, Takis Paterelis, George Fakanas e.t.c. He was a member for one year of "Iasis" a well known ethnic jazz group in Greece and Europe. He did two recordings with George Polyhronakos "blink" and Takis Paterelis group "let the blues talk" in Legend music company.
From 1999 he started visiting New York City area where he met and played with a lot of well known American and international jazz players.
He wrote music for the Greek film "Eonios Fititis" by Vaggelis Seitanidis. He joined the world famous Greek singers Eleftheria Arvanitaki, Maria Farantouri and he is still a member of their bands. He also played with other two very famous Greek singers: Alkisti Protopsalti and Dimitra Galani in the Greek biggest concert hall "Athens music Megaron" where they recorded their performances.

Currently, Dimitris is living in Athens, teaching jazz saxophone and arranging in Nakas music school, gigging with his jazz group. He is working as a session recording musician and arranger. He just finished his first personal project "growing up" which merges elements of jazz, Greek melodies, classical music and recorded in New York City at sytems two recording studios in Brooklyn on the 5th and 6th of January 2004 with a Greek piano player Eleftherios Kordis, an American bass player Dylan Spielvogel, an Irish drummer David Mason featuring Irina Vallentinova from Moscow in vocals.
He recently visited Boston where he performed and presented his own music project with pianist Eleftherios Kordis, bassist Jorge Roeder and drummer Richie Barshay.

His future plans are to perform and present his new project "growing up" in Europe with his own quartet.

 

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