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Othon

Othon Mataragas, a London-based composer, pianist and songwriter, was born and raised in Athens, Greece.

Othon received his first piano lessons at the age of 4 and the following year he gave his debut recital in Athens. When 7 years of age, he was admitted to the National Conservatoire of Greece to study with the famed Greek pianist Maria Kanatsouli-Papadiamandi. He graduated from the Conservatoire at the exceptionally early age of 16, after obtaining his Piano Diploma with Distinction, Prize of Exceptional Interpretation and Xanthopoulidis Prize. During these early years, Othon performed extensively in his home country and appeared frequently on Greek Television (ERT, ANT1, Blue Sky). He received several awards and won competitions, most notably, the National X.O.N. prize for young Greek artists.

Though an acclaimed young musician, Othon soon encountered problems when his appearance started to change. From around 15 onwards, Othon looked nothing like the young Greek pianist one would expect: his constantly changing hair colour accompanied with a passion for body-piercing and self-styled clothing did not go down very well in the conservative classical music circles. In one occasion, he was granted to give a recital at Pallas Theatre, one of Athens' seminal concert venues, only to be refused to perform later, simply due to his looks.

In 1997, Othon moved to London to study piano with the legendary pianist Peter Katin at the Royal College of Music. In 2003 he obtained his compositional diploma from Birkbeck College (with Distinction) and received a scholarship to pursue his compositional studies at Trinity College of Music (PG level). While there, he was mentored by Andrew Poppy and Stephen Montague (with whom he was to collaborate later on) and won the John Halford Prize.

Since he completed his studies in 2006, Othon has been very active as a creator, performer and a collaborator. He has contributed to films (Otto or Up With The Dead People by Bruce LaBruce), fashion films (Komakino and Sophia, for Filep Motwary and Maria Mastori Fall 09 collection), live soundtracks (The Angelic Conversation by Derek Jarman, Nekromantik by Jorg Buttgereit), numerous short films and other happenings (notably, Nasir Mazhar's catwalk installation for the London Fashion Week, Spring – Summer 09). In 2006, Othon made his debut as a live artist for Stephen Montague's Sonic Swamp as part of the collaborative work Stars Fall From Heaven and 2 years later he was commissioned to write and perform a soundtrack to Ron Athey's The History of Ecstasy, in Naples, as part of the Naples Theatre Festival. Other artists Othon has performed or collaborated with include Lee Adams, Black Sun Productions, Peter Christopherson (Throbbing Gristle, Coil, Psychic TV),Current 93, Vaginal Davies, Dominic Johnson, the Elysian Quartet, Fabrizio Modonese Palumbo, Julie Tolentino, Troy Banarzi and A+D+A+M Lab4.

Durtro – Jnana released Othon's debut album, Digital Angel, in December 2008. Digital Angel features unique interpretations of Othon's songs by Marc Almond, David Tibet and Ernesto Tomasini.