Today we’d like to introduce you to Stefanos.
Hi Stefanos, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
My name is Stefanos, I’m a Greek-born world percussionist, composer and educator. I started playing music when I was 6, I don’t come from a musical family so it was just for fun in the beginning. When I was 17 and started working professionally, I realized this was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.
After years of working and touring with Greek bands and orchestras, I felt a bit stagnant. I needed a change, a new challenge. Going abroad had always been on my mind, but I’d never seriously pursued it. Through a series of seemingly random events, I applied to Berklee College of Music, received a scholarship, and made the move to Boston.
Since graduating in 2024, I’ve kept my base in Boston, but I perform regularly along the East Coast!
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It’s definitely not been a smooth road, and I’m glad for it. I firmly believe one grows through their struggles, and the bumps along the way have made me who I am today.
One big challenge was moving abroad. It took a lot of courage to leave my comfort zone – my home, my loved ones, the professional and financial stability I’d built – to come to the US. The beginning was rough: adjusting to a new culture, making connections, and realizing that maybe I wasn’t as good as I thought. But it taught me how much strength I have inside and shaped how I understand life. Looking back, I made some of my best memories during that time.
Another struggle had to do with music itself. I remember playing and being frightened of making mistakes, afraid to take solos, worried I’d sound bad. Obviously, this was exhausting and drained all the fun out of it. The fix wasn’t just about practice. Along with building muscle memory and confidence while performing, it took a lot of inner work to recognize and break through the barriers I’d put on myself. Who’d have thought? We tend to be our harshest critics. But perfection doesn’t exist, so we might as well try and enjoy the ride.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I split my work into three main aspects: I perform as a freelance percussionist with various groups across the East Coast, I compose my own music, and I run an online private teaching studio.
As a performer and composer, I love creating music that blends ethnic, world, and Mediterranean jazz, sometimes incorporating electronic elements. Coming from Greece, I grew up listening to music from the Mediterranean and when I came to the US, I got exposed to other cultures like Afro-Cuban, jazz and West African. I’ve always been attracted to trying to combine different influences in my playing and compositions. There’s a sense of experimentation and innovation that I’m drawn to. It’s not always successful, but I enjoy searching for my own rhythmic, harmonic and timbral combinations through trial and error.
In my teaching studio, I work with percussion students on everything from technique and repertoire across multiple instruments to improvisation, rhythmic concepts, and ear training. Something I’m particularly proud of is that I have several non-percussion students. I have developed a coursework to help musicians work through mental barriers like performance anxiety and thrive as neurodivergent artists. This comes directly from my own experiences and it’s something I always wanted to address. I know we all struggle with such problems, even if we don’t really talk about them.
Are there any important lessons you’ve learned that you can share with us?
I remember a time at Berklee filled with a sense of overwhelming self-doubt. One day, I asked a professor whose opinion I really valued: “Am I good enough? Will I ever make it? Maybe I should just leave.” I felt I needed someone to either give me hope or decide for me. He responded: “The only person who can answer this, is you. Someone once told me I’m not good enough, and yet here I am, doing my best.”
It was probably the best answer he could’ve given me. Not the one I was looking for, but more like what I needed: The knowledge that if I have a dream, I owe it to myself to do my best in order to see it through. I may never become what I once dreamed of, but that’s beside the point.
I guess the lesson is to believe in your dream even if no one else does. The journey itself is priceless and will teach you more than you can imagine. There’s no failure in trying to be your best version, just remember to love yourself in the process.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://sathinaiosmusic.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stefanos.af/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/stefanos.athinaios/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stefanos-athinaios
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoIOTbP8zOq0GQgos5Vj0Vw
