Lucas Tsolakian

Just to catch you up with me, I was born in Sao Paulo, Brazil,
and leave in Athens, Greece.

For the nationality fans, my father is half greek, half armenian, which makes me
one third armenian, one third greek and another third brazilian.

I studied classical music at Conservatorio Dramatico e Musical de Sao Paulo
(Instrument Technician Degree and Bachelor in Arts Diploma).
Until my early 20s I played a lot of classical and contemporary music,
Bach and Villa-Lobos were always on the agenda, along with Debussy
and Bela Bartok.

In fact, I was so much into Villa-Lobos works that I won the first prize at the
"Heitor Villa-Lobos Piano Competition", in Sao Paulo.

Still in Sao Paulo I worked with Ballet da Cidade, playing for modern dance classes
and performinhg with the company.
Computer studies came later, although I had brazilian-made Spectrum clones
since I was 15.

I studied computers at Centre of Programming Research Development Institute
in Greece and Greenwich College in London (Diploma in Computer Programming).

In Greece I had the chance to experiment with minimalism and electronic music
and cooperated with the Centre for Contemporany Electronic Music Research
and the Research Institute of Music and Acousticts.

Dance always played an important role in my life, no wonder my best friends are dancers.

Shortly after I had settled down in Athens I got a job as musician at State School of Dance
in Athens and worked with many greek and foreign dancers and dance companies.
Recently I was offered a place in the music team of the National Greek Opera.

Later on I played with Apurimac, the leading latin-music group in Greece.
Together we released the "Mother Earth" album by the Lyra label.

Dealing with tools and materials goes back to my childhood, as my father
was a constructor. Fixing and repairing things was part of my everyday routine
and it's no wonder that sound sculptures and Installations came later,
after a proposal for a series of performances at Fournos Centre for the Digital Culture
and Athens School of Fine Arts.

The Rodelophones Installation won the Omiros Group award at Installation Art category
and has been presented at Athens Video Art Festival, PixelDance Festival at Thessalonika,
FILE 2006 at Sao Paulo, Brazil, Athens Festival and Athens International Dance Festival.

My new home studio and workspace at Nea Smyrni Athens, with its relatively inspiring view to the garden and the passing-by cats.

My aim was to build a quiet and acoustic decent recording and processing audio suite, so I did some sound treatment to the ceiling (see my instructables page) and kept everything noisy, like external hard-disks, outside the room.

Amazingly for me, this worked.

   

main instruments:
Yamaha UX-1 Piano
LP Classic Model Congas
Moog Minimoog and Polymoog
Zildjian Cymbals
Istanbul Darbukas
Korg SG proX Stage Piano / Controller
Studiologic VMK-88 plus Controller
Novation Nocturn Controller

software and processing:
Ableton Live
Ohmforce plugins

recording:
Apple Macintosh Powermac G5,
Powerbook and Macbook
Focusrite Saffire Pro40
Spirit Absolut 4p speakers
AKG C-3000 and C-1000 mics
Presonus tube preamplifier
and hp4 Headphones Amplifier

Last year (2008) I did some sound treatment to my studio's ceiling with great results. It took me about 20 hours of work using a helpfull bar (Knauff) for lifting / setting the drywalls. I also used stonewool and at the end some very cheap and easy to apply finishing material.

video

The Titanium Powerbook G4 was my first mac. Replacing the logicboard / motherboard was easier than I expected, thanks to iFixit.com. One helpfull tip is to have little bottles to put screws and little easy-to-loose parts.

video

I was in need of at least four transducers for capturing floor noise at my new project with LUMI Dance Company. Its a really simple and low cost construction, about 2,5 euros altogether. I used wood from a found old desk.

Video comming soon...