In Memoriam John (Giannis) Mavreas, 1930-2024
We are saddened to report the death of John (Giannis) Mavreas, founding board member and past president of the Chicago Classical Guitar Society.
John (or "Mr. Mavreas" as I initially knew him!) was my first classical guitar teacher. I began studying with him at the Music Center of the North Shore (now the Music Institute of Chicago) at the age of fourteen. Later, I had the opportunity to study with him at Northeastern Illinois University. John was a remarkable figure in the Chicago guitar world. He not only gave his students high-level musical training, but also provided them with the opportunity to perform in concerts and master classes, and to hear world-class artists who he invited to perform for the CCGS. He organized the annual CCGSholiday event, as well as student recitals that showcased pupils from many different teachers in town. Through his range of activities in Chicago, John helped to develop an audience for the classical guitar and launched many of his students into further musical study at the international level. His legacy lives on through his former students, who are teaching his countless grand and great-grand students today.
What follows are tributes penned by John's colleagues and former students. If you would like to contribute your recollections of John, we will be posting them on the CCGS website as we receive them.
–Anne Waller
"The last of the pioneers of the classical guitar in Greece has passed away"
Excerpts from a tribute by Evangelos Asimakopoulos
Featured in the October 2024 issue of TaR
Submitted to the CCGS by David Buch
With deep emotion and immense sadness, Lisa and I said goodbye last week to the soloist, music teacher, and friend Giannis Mavreas, who left us at the age of 94. With the death of Mavreas, the cycle of the list of pioneers of the classical guitar in Greece is completed.
A devoted follower and lover of the classical guitar, Giannis Mavreas never compromised with the various musical currents that brought the instrument away from its identity as a concert instrument or its pure, timeless, authentic repertoire. I would even say that Mavreas' commitment to the orthodox technique of the instrument ranks him among the ardent followers and workers of a School that remained faithful and sincere towards the classical guitar.
Born in 1930 in Kalamata, Mavreas came to Athens at the age of eighteen and worked as an employee at TAE (the forerunner of the later Olympic Aviation). At the same time, he studied guitar at the Hellenic Conservatory in the class of Charalambos Ekmektsoglou. He left Greece in the mid-1950s for America and chose to settle in Chicago. He worked hard and managed in a short time to gain a respectable name, both as a soloist and as a guitar teacher. In more than thirty years of artistic activity, Giannis Mavreas gave concerts and recitals; taught at the Music Center of the North Shore (now the Music Institute of Chicago), and created a remarkable guitar studio. He served as President of the Chicago Classical Guitar Society for several years. Upon his return to Greece at the end of the 1980s, he was appointed as Regular Professor at the National Conservatory of Athens, simultaneously taking over the direction of the Municipal Conservatory of his hometown of Kalamata.
Lisa and I met many students of Mavreas both in Greece and America and we found that, in addition to the perfect technique on the guitar that they all possessed, they also had a broad musical training and a wealth of knowledge that they had acquired thanks to their teacher, "the Mentor," as he was often called. I don't think there is a greater praise for the work of a teacher than the respect and appreciation of his students.
"John Mavreas, CCGS Founding Member, Passes"
Neil Mermelstein, CCGS President 1988-2002
It is with sadness that I write of the passing of John (Giannis) Mavreas, the classical guitar teacher with whom I studied for ten years and received excellent instruction and enthusiasm. We both had an abiding interest in promoting the classical guitar. John was one of the founders of the Mid-America Guitar Society (renamed the Chicago Classical Guitar Society, CCGS) in 1965, served as program director in 1978-79, and served as president of the society from 1979 to 1985. The society provided meetings, performance opportunities, concerts by guest artists, master classes, and other activities.
John was born in Kalamata, Greece in 1930 and moved at age 18 to Athens, where he studied guitar at the Hellenic Conservatory. In the 1950s he moved to Chicago and became active in the guitar community. He taught at Sherry-Brener's Spanish Academy of the Guitar, Northeastern Illinois University, and the Music Center of the North Shore (now the Music Institute of Chicago), where he taught until 1985, when he and his wife Thalia and daughter Ismini moved back to Greece. There he became a professor of guitar at the National Conservatory of Athens, as well as director of the Municipal Conservatory in Kalamata. John died on October 17, 2024 at the age of 94.
John was an excellent performer and teacher. His performing ability was noted early on. A review in the January-February 1965 issue of Guitar News said that "guitarist John Mavreas should be singled out for his unfaltering technique and full, singing tone." His performance of the Sor Study in G major "was notable for the ravishing variety of tone colors employed by Mr. Mavreas, to say nothing of the absolute clarity of each and every note and phrase. He captured very well the melancholy, mystical quality of the Villa-Lobos Prelude. This performer's sense of style, technical ability and fine musicianship should take him to the top of the musical world."
John was a well-known and respected teacher. We remember him with warmth and a sense of loss.
A Tribute from Pamela Kimmel, Past CCGS President
John Mavreas was a guiding light for the classical guitar community in Chicago. As one of the founders of our guitar society, he had the knowledge and good taste to help bring rising stars to perform for our series. John was a great teacher and wonderful colleague. It was a pleasure to have known him.