Bio

Antonis Skokos was born in Athens Greece. He started playing the piano at the age of 6.

The link of his family with music dates back to the 1930s, when Antonis’ grandparents were teaching classical piano in the National Conservatory of Athens. Antonis was taught classic music by his grandmother (Katina Skokou), and he was greatly influenced by his father, who was the drummer and member of the legendary band “The Forminx”, alongside the academy award winning composer Vangelis (Blade runner & Chariots of fire). Antonis grew up in a highly artistic and musical environment, given that the godfather of Antonis’ father was Dimitris Mitropoulos the conductor of the New York Philharmonic.

At 11 years old, Antonis’ studied at the Athens Conservatory with Pari Derebei and Dora Bakopoulou. He also pursued studies of music theory, harmony, counterpoint, and fugue, with Kostantinos Kydoniatis. In addition, he completed a 3-year course in jazz and improvisation with Markos Alexiou, and a 2-year course in music for theatre and cinema with George Bountouvis and Dimitris Papadimitriou. During his academic career in Greece, Antonis received all his degrees with high honors.

In 1992, Antonis was awarded the prestigious 4-year graduate scholarship by the “Onassis public benefit foundation”, that enabled him to study at the CIM (Jazz Music Conservatory of Paris, France). At CIM he studied classical piano with Sammy Abenaim, jazz and big band orchestration with Ivan Jullien (former orchestrator of Michelle Legrand), piano jazz improvisation with Kenny Werner, arrangement, instrumentation and composition with the famous American jazz composers, arrangers and conductors Douglas Clare Fisher and Bill Dobbins, as well as composition, arrangement and instrumentation with Derry Hall, Ivan Julien, and Denis Bioteau. Antonis was awarded with a superior degree in composition, arrangement and orchestration with high honors and he received the silver medal by the President of Honor Henri Dutilleux. Further, he studied at the Conservatory of Gennevilliers analysis of music sheets and scores and formation musicale, with Christof Roger. Finally, Antonis studied counterpoint and Fugue at the ECOLE NORMAL with Thierry Machuel, and composition, orchestration of classical music and conducting at the SCHOLA CANTORUM with Patris Sciortino (student of Igor Stravinsky). He received both degrees with high distinction and he was awarded with the Golden Prize award.

Followed his studies he worked as classical piano teacher assistant and choir arranger at the “Conservatoire des Gennevilliers”. In addition, Antonis worked as a private tutor of classical and jazz piano, music theory and songwriting, as well as a composer and arranger for various music groups in pop, funk, jazz, and R&B music. He spent time working as a jingle composer for several shows in the French TV as well as broadcastings of Radio France. Antonis returned to his home country Greece in 1997, where he started working as conductor, arranger, pianist and musical director with the most prestigious Greek artists. He worked as jingle composer of the Greek TV show “Mporo” presented by Anna Drouza and “Oti Kalytero” where Antonis was promoted as the show’s musical director. He was hired as musical director, arranger, conductor, and pianist for the TV show “Auti einai i Zoi Sou”, broadcasted by ANT1 Channel and the TV show “12” which is presented by Nikos Mastorakis (Greek presenter and movies’ director) broadcasted by ALPHA Channel. Between 2007 and 2008 Antonis became the musical director, arranger, conductor, and pianist of the TV show “Tha Peis ki Ena Tragoudi”, presented by Andreas Mikroutsikos. The show was broadcasted by SKAI Channel Greece (highly ranked private TV station to be founded in Greece in 1993) and was created as a copy of the American TV show “Singing Bee”. Between 2009 and 2011, he was part of the very successful live Greek music TV shows “Amstel Live” of SKAI Channel Greece, where he worked as musical director. The show was produced by Marc Jansen, who has also been the producer of the TV shows “The Voice Greece” and “The Voice Kids” in the US.

Concluding the 24-year (up to date) career of Antonis Skokos, it would not be possible to omit a great number of albums where he has worked as producer, composer, arranger and pianist / keyboardist, collaborating with a many of the best-selling artists of the Greek music industry. Many of Antonis’ song pieces have also been filmed into video clips. Concluding this bio essay, many of the music albums where Antonis has participated as main producer, composer, arranger, and pianist / keyboardist have gained multiplatinum, platinum and gold statuses. The list includes 7 GOLD records, 4 PLATINUM records, and 2 MULTIPLATINUM records.