Excerpts of reviews from the international press.
San Francisco Chronicle
"Here is an artist, not just another technician. Besides a massive, rather symphonic command of the instrument, Tsopela has intellect and a consummate feeling for the line and proportion of music. I cannot remember having enjoyed Beethoven's Op. 57 Sonata so fully in my lifetime".
Hewell Tircuit
Dallas Times Herald
"Like her late friend and sponsor Miss Bachauer, she has power to burn, and this is happily wedded to a real lyric gift... Bachauer would have been proud".
Olin Chism
Los Angeles Times
"Her intensity seems relentless, her strength considerable; she belongs in a class with other relentless, strong pianists, like Lazar Berman".
Daniel Cariaga
Sacramento Union
"Pianist Vinia Tsopelas is obviously one of those musicians who makes everything that she touches sound better. Her performance of the Mozart concerto brought a three-dimensional quality to the work... Even when she wasn't playing, one could feel an electric energy onstage".
Holly Johnson
Santa Barbara News - Press
"In the capable hands of soloist Vinia Tsopelas, the piece sprang to life and achieved its desired heroic ardor. She explored the material with admirable dramatic scope and technical aplomb. Tsopelas displayed passion - and restraint, where romantic bombast can rule".
Josef Woodard
Sacramento Bee
"There is a Greek in town bearing gifts, but we need not beware. These gifts are musical ones, proffered by a major talent at the piano. The reference is to Vinia Tsopelas... She approaches music with more than an impeccable style. Tsopelas adds a rare understanding of Mozart's intentions..."
Alfred Kay
Frankfurter Tagesblatt
"Poetic ambassador from Greece. The artist, who has made a great name for herself in her homeland and the United States, was making her first appearance in Germany in the historic Town Hall of Kronach. That was certainly an event for the annals".
Liselotte Kramer
Eleftheros Typos (of Athens)
"In Vinia Tsopela, we have discovered not only a brilliant pianist, but a musician who is intimately linked to the expressive world and sound of Mozart and who managed to transform Mozart's expressive universe into acoustical reality".
Lily Alekou Drakou
ESTIA (of Athens).
"In her interpretations of Mozart she offered the most persuasive evidence of maturity of expression, grace and appropriate style, as well as of a technical clarity and consistency that allowed full expression of her inherent musical sensibility".
Liana Roussianou-Piperaki
The Saratogian
"Pianist Vinia Tsopelas made a dazzling debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra. Her reading of the Beethoven concerto was intense and deeply thoughtful. She played with a strong rhythmic articulation combined with a flowing tonal beauty that is often missing from the persuasive style of other young performers in this work. The slow movement was magical".
Ron Emery
San Francisco Chronicle
"A mode of impressive technique put to a high artistic usage. She plays with a notable electric level of tension. Even brief moments of silence seem to vibrate with excitement. Her very large width of dynamics hinted at the late Arthur Rubinstein. This was matchless playing, full bravura with a keen sense of architecture always in view".
Hewell Tircuit
Washington Post
"A concert rich in flavor, interpretation... Tsopelas conveyed the sense of improvisation in this music as well as its distinctive melodic and rhythmic contours... The first movement of Robert Schumann's Phantasie in C, Op. 17, came on like a tropical storm - one, I must add, with very deep and mellow tones..."
Joseph McLellan
The New York Times
... There was a sense of engagement with the music (its predominant characteristic, in her interpretation, was a kind of pregnant mysteriousness), and this involvement proved characteristic.
Will Crutchfield
The Greek American
It was clear from the evening’s recital that Ms. Tsopelas is a pianist of stature, whose performances attune us to the real spirit of pianism, which according to Edward Said, is the ability of the pianist to cause the listener to feel and understand the music with as great an intensity as if he were sitting at the piano himself and playing.
Russell Harris
Fyns Amts Avis Nyborg Denrmak
Spyros Mourikis and Vinia Tsopelas, the two outstanding instrumentalists... showed that the technical side is quite subjugated to the musical expression.
Bent Nielsen
Omaha World Herald
Greek pianist Vinia Tsopelas gave a powerful and passionate performance that belied her ethereal image. Miss Tsopelas is a frequent guest with major symphony orchestras in the United States. She brought both a visual and aural radiance to the stage at the Joslyn Art Museum, the music envelops her and the audience so completely that it feels like private moments in which we almost intrude by listening... she becomes almost trancelike.
Mary Treynor Smith
Tribune –Queens Country’s Weekly Magazine
“A Romantic Promenade” leaves audience spellbound. Greek pianist Vinia Tsopelas was soloist in Grieg’s Piano Concerto in A-minor. With her big tone and sense of drama she brought life to the music through the virility of her playing.
Irene Stitt
Schenectady Gazette
Vinia Tsopelas, the Greek-born pianist who performed with The Philadelphia Orchestra at the Saratoga Performance Arts Center... is a pianist who can take lots of notes in her stride. This was a very feeling full, sensitive performance... her technique is refined – her finger work lace-like and perfect for the glistening runs and trills in this concerto.
Bill Rice
The Arizona Daily Star
A student of the late Gina Bachauer, Miss Tsopelas is a more impetuous and tempestuous player than her mentor. If the cadenzas were manifestations of intensity through fire, the second movement was a matter of intensity through restraint.
Kenneth LaFave
The Phoenix Gazette
Her performance of Beethoven’s Fantasy for Piano, Chorus and Orchestra in C minor, Op. 80 was carefully detailed... this was a careful, thorough reading exhibiting excellent musicianship.
Michael Dixon