Pianist Nikos Kokkinis (BMus hons, LRAM, MMus, PGDip) studied at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama and the Royal Academy of Music on scholarships. Nikos has specialised in piano solo performance with Greece’s and Britain’s greatest teachers and pedagogues.

Nikos is the recipient of the “Best Pianist” Award at the 16th international choir festival Young Voices in Russia. He has been twice the recipient of the “Exceptional Young Artist Award” in Greece and was honoured with an official Commendation as a pianist by the Municipality of Heraklion. While a student in the United Kingdom Nikos was awarded the “Julian Jacobson Prize” and the “Laurence Davies Memorial Award”.

Nikos has worked as a piano teacher at the Hendon School in London for eight years where he re-established the piano class. He was an accompanist for the London Studio Center and the Highgate School. He had been a regular examinations accompanist for the Cecchetti International Society of Ballet in London and pianist for the Teacher’s Course for the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing.

Nikos engraves original editions of works from the standard pianistic repertoire. (Most recently, sonatinas by Kuhlau and Clementi, Petzold’s minuets, sonatas by Cimarosa and works by Beethoven and Mendelssohn, amongst others). All his works are commercially available. 

He composes educational music for the piano and for small ensembles. He wrote the music for the ballet The Enchanting Starlings which was performed in two shows in 2011. His paperback collection of pieces Scenes From A Child’s Mind can be found at the Piano Practising website and at Itanos Publications.

Since 2010, Nikos publishes the educational pianists’ website Piano Practising, focusing on optimal approaches to learning the piano. He has written 121 articles for Piano Practising, for the Pianist Magazine (online edition) an article about the Taubman Technique, and the novelette The Bad Pianist.

Nikos has performed art song extensively, and his repertoire includes complete song cycles by the main exponents of Lied.

Nikos is based in Crete and teaches the piano at the Concervatory of the Municipality of Heraklion. He performs with singers, orchestras, instrumentalists and other ensembles, both for examinations and for concerts. He accompanies at the piano the Childrens’, Youth & Mixed choirs of the Heraklion Municipality Conservatoire and the Childrens’, Youth & Mixed choirs of the regional unit of Heraklion. He is an associate repetiteur for Opera productions of the Cultural and Conference Centre of Heraklion. He teaches the piano privately at his studios in Heraklion and in Archanes. 

Since 2020, Nikos teaches piano and sight-reading online sporadically.