Bio of Viktor Mastoridis

Viktor's grandparents are born in Pondos, today's Turkey. They move to Greece due to the population exchange between Greece and Turkey, 1923.

Viktor himself is born in Greece, from a Greek father and Macedonian mother.

When his father bankrupts at the time of the Greek military Junta (60's), the family moves to Yugoslavia, the part later known as Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM).

It is there that Viktor starts his musical journey, as a blues guitarist/composer soon nicknamed “Slowhand”.

Forming numerous local bands, his interest expands to Experimental, Prog and Psychedelic Rock and later New Wave.

Being Twins in the Horoscope, he simultaneously and secretly develops a great interest in the folk music and rhythms of Macedonia, and later Serbia, Greece and Bosnia as well.

Secretly, because it was unheard for an ex-hippy to dwell in some murky folk waters at that time.

Still, this interest gets the shape of a Greek Bouzouki which soon proves to be a great bread-earner.

On the other hand, the interest in modern music leads Viktor in the creation of the first Hip-Hop band in Yugoslavia who sung in its native languages: Serbo-Croatian and Macedonian. The name of the band was Super Nova. Firstly greeted with great suspicion, the melodic, chorus-rich rap-tunes brought them recognition in the underground scene; as well as successful appearances on TV, radio and most of the greatest unsigned Pop-Festivals at that time.

Falling short of a major contract due to the N-tieth Balkan War (1990), Viktor moves to the Netherlands, where he acquires a Degree and knowledge at the SAE – School of Audio Engineering in Amsterdam.

He also gets a new nickname: this time it's “Viktor Moore”, due to the similarity of his playing to that of Gary Moore.

Having played rebellious “Western Music” in Yugoslavia, in the Netherlands he turns to rebelious World Music. “World Music” in Viktor's case has the following meaning: Blues and Art/Prog Rock fusion with Greek and Balkan Folk.

That music leaves the Dutch totally unmoved, so at the end of the last Millennium Viktor moves to London, UK.

Here he continues developing his own World Music vision, and that results in a few motion pictures projects:

- Some music for a British/Macedonian co-production movie “Dust” from Milcho Manchevski

- Most of the music for a British Ch4 TV series called “A Place Under the Sun” - Greece, Spain and France.

-Part of his music was also successfully included on a CD named: “Olympics 2004 – Athens” released by EMI UK.

- Recently (2008) the song Lipimena Ta Tragoudia was featured in the movie "Stiletto (2008)

Now working as a free-lance composer, music teacher and free-lance journalist at BBC World Radio in London, Viktor continues to develop his vision of World Music.

Since April 2008, all music is recorded entirely on Open sopurce software: Linux Ubuntu Studio OS, using RME HDSP soundcard and software like: Jack, Ardour, Hydrogen, Rosegarten, Qsynth etc.
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