Honest Touch was formed by Fofi
Maniadaki and Samy
Elgazzar and is based in Athens, Greece. Honest
Touch is an ongoing project rather
than a traditional band. The distinctive style
of the project - a crossroads of New
Age Pop, Piano music and Orchestral
music - creates a
cinematic and emotional musical approach. Listeners are
inspired to create their own images and scenarios.
Fofi received her
piano diploma from the prestigious Piraeus
Conservatory,
with honors and a First Prize award. Having attended
numerous international master classes as an active participant
at European music academies, she eventually specialized
in romantic, neo-romantic and contemporary music. Fofi
has a very active career. Besides being a piano professor,
she performs in concert halls and festivals throughout
Greece and appears as guest artist in universities and
conservatories. Along her solo career she collaborates
with talented soloists in chamber music concerts.
The
other half of Honest Touch, Samy,
received a B. M. in Composition with honors from Berklee
College of Music and a Youth
Concerts at Symphony Hall award. After a very extensive career as a Professor in
Music composition and Music technology, he now leads
a successful career as an orchestral arranger. He has
sat in with a wide range of Greek and foreign artists,
orchestrating songs and large scale classical pieces.
His orchestrations have been performed in major theaters
in Greece , the Megaron Concert Hall, Herodium Theater,
Epidavrus Theater, and Athens National Opera among others,
as well as in concerts and music festivals in Europe.
Fofi and Samy met early in the
year 1999 at a music conservatory where both were teaching.
Their distinctive passion for Classical music, New Age
music, Pop and Film music created the momentum to unite
and fulfill a common vision: a music that fuses the aesthetics
of both Pop and Classical.
Samy’s
acquaintance with his muse Fofi in 1999 led to the creation
of Honest Touch in
2000. After performing with talented musicians for two
years, the band went to the studio in 2002 to record
their debut album. In the same year, their song “Luce
Lontana” won 1st prize in the instrumental
category and 3rd overall in the West Coast Songwriters
Song Contest.
In their debut
album “Memories From A Dream”,
the project is backed by a seven-piece band, the Amadeus
Orchestra (in some songs the Philarmonia
Bulgarica) and
the Fons Musicalis Choir. The
project plays instrumental music composed and arranged
by Samy, with Fofi as piano soloist. In their live concerts,
the project play their own arrangements from both the
Pop and Classical music repertoire.
Mastering engineer
Vlado
Meller (Sony Music Studios), whose credits include
albums by Barbara Streisand, Prince and Celine Dion to
name but a few, added his sonic expertise to the debut
album. In 2005, the album was released on Polytropon
Records and distributed by Universal
Music. A year and half later, "Memories From A Dream" was nominated among the Album Finalists of the 2007 Independent Music Awards in the New Age category. Among the judges of these prestigious awards were, Peter Gabriel, Ozzy Osbourne, and Suzanne Vega.
“Our
intention is to create instrumental songs that touch the listener in a sincere and emotional tone,” Fofi
and Samy write in the liner notes of the project’s
debut album, “to be enraptured by images created
by the balance of continuous beautiful melodies, ambient
harmonies and lush, fluent orchestrations. A sort of
cinematic Pop music or as we call it Tacit
Pop.”
A
multifaceted name, ‘Honest
Touch’ suggests
the duo’s wish for a sincere relationship among
people, a unity bonded by respect, consideration and
genuine love; it was also an inspiration from Michelangelo’s “The
Creation of Adam”.
For those who are not familiar
with the music of Honest
Touch, if you like New Age piano music with
orchestral and rhythm section accompaniment such as
in some of the songs of David Lanz, Yanni, Vangelis
and Ennio Morricone, then you will take pleasure in
listening to the ‘musical statement’ of
Honest Touch.
The
music of Honest Touch is also
concerned with political and social issues with the peak
of the album being the ironically titled “And A
Time For War…!” From the moving themes of “A
Lonely Ride”, “Autumn Tear” to the
pianistically intricate passages in “Luce Lontana” and “Memories
From A Dream”, the album includes upbeat emotive
songs such as “Moments With You”, “Dancing
Under the Moon” and “Lay All Your Love On
Me” by the legendary Pop group Abba.
Honest
Touch ’s debut album
is an attempt to offer a fresh music experience to both
existing and new fans. A producer from Taxi.com,
the world’s leading independent A&R company,
made the following critique: “the music is top
quality as well as the production…” Be sure
to check the Music Samples page before
you pick up your copy of “Memories
From A Dream”. Stay tuned with Honest Touch, music
that offers a unique sensation, in a New Age Pop
orchestral style.
