Katsaris was born in
Marseille, France, the son of greek businessman Erotokritos Katsaris and his wife Niki (née Papadopoulos). He first began to play the piano when he was four, in
Douala,
Cameroon, where he grew up and his father was in the business of exporting
peanut oil and
soap. His first teacher was Marie-Gabrielle Louwerse. He studied piano at the
Paris Conservatoire with
Aline van Barentzen (a pupil of
Élie-Miriam Delaborde, son of
Charles-Valentin Alkan), and
Monique de la Bruchollerie (a pupil of
Emil von Sauer, who was a pupil of
Franz Liszt). Briefly, Katsaris studied under
György Cziffra. In 1969, Katsaris won the piano First Prize at the Conservatoire. As well as piano, Katsaris studied chamber music with
René Leroy and
Jean Hubeau, and he won First Prize for this in 1970. Katsaris gave his first public concert in Paris, at the
Théâtre des Champs-Élysées on 8 May 1966. He performed the
Hungarian Fantasy by
Liszt, with the Orchestre Symphonique d'Ile-de-France conducted by René-Pierre Chouteau. Since then he has gone on to perform with many orchestras and conductors frequently. Katsaris was the second musician to record the complete Liszt
transcriptions of
Beethoven's nine symphonies, after
İdil Biret – reissued by Warner Classics in 2006. He has also recorded the music of
Mozart,
Chopin,
Grieg, and other composers, including the rare piano version of
Mahler's
Das Lied von der Erde with
Brigitte Fassbaender and
Thomas Moser. In 2001, Katsaris created his own recording label, Piano 21. In 2011, he performed a concert with French baritone
David Serero in Paris. == Awards ==