Lefteris Kordis

Pianist, Composer, and Inner Circle Music recording artist Lefteris Kordis has established himself as a unique voice in the Mediterranean Jazz genre. He grew up in a multi-cultural area in Elefsis, an ancient town near Athens, Greece. Since the age of four, he studied, performed, and composed based on a wide spectrum of genres including Greek Folk, European Chamber, and Jazz.

He graduated from the Experimental Music Gymnasium and Lyceum of Pallini, the National Conservatory of Athens, the Ionian University, and pursued a Master and a Doctorate at New England Conservatory on Fulbright and Onassis grants.

He has performed in major international venues such as the Carnegie Hall, Panama Jazz Festival, Athens Epidaurus Festival, and Toronto Jazz Festival with music legends Steve Lacy, Sheila Jordan, George Garzone, Jerry Bergonzi, Joe Lovano, Jay Clayton, Vasilis Saleas, Mikis Theodorakis, Vasilis Skoulas, Glykeria, Greg Osby, Panayotis Lalezas, and Robin Eubanks, among others. In 2022, he was filmed accompanying on piano Hollywood actress Julia Ormond on a movie that will be released in 2025.

Lefteris studied with Jazz Guru Charlie Banacos and devoted his doctoral dissertation on Banacos’s groundbreaking music pedagogy. Lefteris is currently Associate Professor at Berklee College of Music, Associate Professor of Jazz and Afro-American Studies at the Ionian University in Greece, Professor of Music at the Hellenic College Holy Cross, and founder of his own pedagogy online platform, the Intergalactic Music Academy. He taught and developed curriculum at the world-renown New England Conservatory (2005 - 2015) and at the Global Jazz Institute (2016-2019), teaching alongside John Patitucci, Danilo Pérez, Terri Lyne Carrington, George Garzone, Joe Lovano, and Dave Liebman. He is the co-director -along with Dimos Dimitriadis, of the "Aqua Jazz,” a program that builds bridges between East Mediterranean folk and jazz musicians.

Lefteris has served as gospel choir director and organist/pianist at the historic Columbus Ave AME Zion Church in Boston and Cambridge and at the Berachah church in Dorchester, MA. He performs regularly with his jazz trio with bassists Brad Barrett and/or John Lockwood and drummer Dor Herskovits, and co-leads the Penny Muse Band, a cross-disciplinary Greek Jazz art-song and Folk music band.

Lefteris has recorded seven albums as a leader and numerous others as a sideman. His new critically acclaimed double CD album “ Aquarelles: Celebrating the Inner Child” is a collection of original sound paintings and it features tenor saxophone jazz legend Jerry Bergonzi on tenor sax, Lefteris Bournias on clarinet, Edmar Colon on soprano sax, Brad Barrett and Jorge Roeder on bass, Dor Herskovits and Eviatar Slivnik on drums, Harris Lambrakis on ney,  Isaac Romagosa on guitar, and many other Boston, Athens GR, and New York-based musicians. The record was released in March 2024 by saxophonist Greg Osby’s Inner Circle Music label and it has received astounding reviews.

lefteriskordis.com (artist page)
igmacademy.org (cross-discipline music pedagogy)
Supervisors: Gregory E. Smith (Ph.D. Harvard University)
Address: Arlington, Massachusetts, United States