ATHENS – Greek violist Ilias Livieratos was awarded the Jan Wallander Prize 2022 at a special event held in Stockholm, the Swedish Embassy in Greece wrote on Facebook on Friday.

The prize is awarded annually to one outstanding student who studies at the country’s music colleges. According to the award citation posted on the prize’s website, “The violist Ilias Livieratos possesses a warm and rich sound. He displays a multifaceted playing that is deeply personal and always interesting. He is a wonderful instrumentalist and a worthy recipient of this year’s Wallander Prize.”

As part of the recognition, Livieratos received a viola made around 1800 by Giuseppe, Antonio and Giovanni Gagliano.

Ilias Livieratos, born in 1991, is originally from Greece. He earned his bachelor’s degree in violin from the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Munich, where he studied with the violinist and conductor Christoph Poppen. He is also an alumnus of the Mozarteum Salzburg. In 2021 he came to Stockholm and the Royal College of Music to study the master’s program in Classical Music for the renowned violist Ellen Nisbeth.

He is currently the principal violist of the Athens State Orchestra, Athens’ oldest orchestra, and has served as both a violist and a violinist at the Greek National Opera. He has also worked in Camerata-Armonia Atenea and Augsburg Philharmonics.

Earlier this year he was invited by the internationally acclaimed violinist Leonidas Kavakos to a charity concert for the reconstruction of the maternity clinic in Mariupol, Ukraine.