Chamber Music and Collaborations

Alongside his solo career, Nicolas is deeply committed to chamber music and collaborative projects. He has worked with internationally acclaimed musicians and singers, including:

— David Cohen, youngest-ever Principal Cello of the Philharmonia Orchestra, London; collaborator of Rostropovich, Ashkenazy & Sir Georg Solti
— Gustav Rivinius, Gold Medal Laureate, International Tchaikovsky Competition, Moscow
— Chloë Hanslip, ECHO Klassik Award Winner & Classical BRIT Award recipient
— Vilmos Szabadi, Professor at the Liszt Academy, Budapest; leading Hungarian violinist; double prize-winner (1999, 2002) at the MIDEM Festival, Cannes, France
— Simos Papanas, international violinist; Concertmaster and Director of the Thessaloniki State Symphony Orchestra; recording artist for Deutsche Grammophon, BIS & Centaur
— Kazuhiro Takagi, prize-winner of the Queen Elisabeth (Brussels), Geneva International, and Fischoff National Chamber Music Competitions; Concertmaster of the Dallas Chamber Symphony
— Maté Szűcs, former Principal Viola of the Berlin Philharmonic; Professor at the Haute école de musique de Genève
— Erkki Rautio, Finnish cellist, Pro Finlandia Medal recipient (Order of the Lion of Finland); distinguished chamber musician
— Péter Somodari, Principal Cello of the Vienna Philharmonic
— Tytus Miecznikowski, concert cellist
— János Bálint, internationally renowned flautist and professor; artistic partner of András Schiff, Martha Argerich, Miklós Perényi & Zoltán Kocsis
— Gábor Varga, former Principal Clarinet of the Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra; former Clarinet Tutor at the Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester; former Associate Professor of Clarinet at the Jacobs School of Music, Indiana University
— Meta4 String Quartet, winners of the International Shostakovich Quartet Competition, Moscow & International Joseph Haydn Chamber Music Competition, Vienna
— Akadémia String Quartet, ensemble in residence at the Liszt Academy, Budapest.

“I have performed chamber music with many outstanding musicians, yet in collaboration with Nicolas I experienced an exceptional artistic freedom and authenticity. Making music with him was a profound and memorable artistic privilege.” – Péter Somodari

Art Song Collaborations

His particular affinity for Art Song has led to collaborations with:
— Sopranos Theodora Raftis (Prize Winner, Cavalli Monteverdi International Baroque Opera Competition), Zoe Nicolaidou (Paris Opera Atelier Lyrique; performances at Opéra National de Paris, Musikverein Vienna & Lincoln Center), and Margarita Elia
— Mezzo-soprano Elli Aloneftou
— Tenors Christian Zenker (performing at Theater an der Wien, Beethovenfest Bonn & Dresdner Musikfestspiele; recording artist for Oehms Classics, Sony/BMG & Harmonia Mundi), Andreas Aroditis, Stelios Georgiou, Marios Andreou
— Baritone Kyros Patsalides (First Prize, International Song Competition, Arena di Verona; appearances at Vienna State Opera, Musikverein Wien & Berlin Konzerthaus).

“His expressive playing has remained particularly memorable to me—not only as a sensitive Lied accompanist, but also as a soloist—along with his consistently successful and passionate pursuit of the perfect phrase and sound, his precise articulation, and especially his warm and highly engaging personality with which he also inspires and supports his outstanding students.” – Christian Zenker

He also occasionally engages in interdisciplinary projects with dancers, choreographers, painters, and other multimedia artists.

Commitment to Contemporary and Cypriot Music

Nicolas regularly performs works by Cypriot composers in Cyprus and abroad, including several world premieres, with a particular focus on the music of Constantinos Y. Stylianou (b. 1972).

Recordings
Nicolas has recorded five albums under the Odradek label:

• Metavasis (2023), featuring Stylianou’s 12 Préludes, Series I
• Past Forward (2023), including Stylianou’s first two viola sonatas with violist Máté Szűcs
• Hedra (2023), sonatas for cello and piano with cellist Péter Somodari
• Empneusis (2025), works for clarinet and piano with clarinettist Gábor Varga
• Kýma (2025), twentieth- and twenty-first-century sonatas for flute and piano with flautist János Bálint

Selected Projects and Highlights

In 2018, Dr Costantinou collaborated with Simos Papanas, Maté Szűcs, and Péter Somodari in a piano quartet concert featuring works by Mozart, Brahms, and Schumann. Earlier in the same year, he toured with an all-Chopin programme (Larnaca, Nicosia, Beirut, and London). He has also performed, for the first time in Cyprus, Beethoven’s complete works for piano and violin (2013–14) with Nikos Pittas and for piano and cello (2015–16) with Péter Somodari.

Education and Musical Formation

Nicolas’ passion for music and the arts was cultivated from an early age, coming from a family of musicians, artists, actors, dancers, choreographers, and architects. He graduated from the Hellenic Academy of Music, the Ferenc Liszt Academy of Music in Szeged, and the Ferenc Liszt University of Music in Budapest (summa cum laude). He holds a Master of Music in Performance from the Cleveland Institute of Music (USA) and a PhD from the Royal College of Music in London, supervised by Prof Paul Banks, Dr Julian Jacobson, and Dr Jane Roper. His dissertation is entitled The Chamber Music of Ernő Dohnányi: Tradition, Innovation, and “Hungarianness”.

He has studied with Edna Golandsky, Márta Gulyás, Daniel Shapiro, Sándor Falvai, Ferenc Kerek, and Tania Economou, and has participated in masterclasses with Dmitri Bashkirov, Nicolas Economou, Vadim Suchanov, and Ferenc Rados.

Teaching and Pedagogical Activity

Dr Costantinou taught piano at the European University and at the University of Nicosia (Assistant Professor) and currently teaches piano at the Cyprus Music Schools. His students have won numerous prizes at international competitions and attended masterclasses with distinguished professors. Several have pursued further studies at renowned institutions, including the Reina Sofía Escuela Superior de Música in Madrid, Hochschule für Musik Franz Liszt in Weimar, the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, the Purcell School in London, the Royal Conservatoire of The Hague, the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, and the Mozarteum in Salzburg.

His articles on Beethoven have been published in the journal Diorama.

Personal Interests & Pedagogical Philosophy

Nicolas has a love for languages and speaks five fluently. He is also deeply committed to pianistic health and is a Certified Taubman Instructor — one of only six in Europe — advocating a method that promotes freedom, efficiency, and long-term injury prevention.