Honest Touch profile picture

Honest Touch

A blend of New Age Pop, Piano & orchestral music.

About Me

Discover a new way to inspire your mind and soul - music that offers a unique sensation to its listeners.
The music of Honest Touch fuses the aesthetics of Pop and Classical, creating a cinematic and emotional musical approach a crossroads of Piano music, New Age Pop and Orchestral music.
Honest Touch is a project rather than a traditional band formed by Fofi Maniadaki and Samy Elgazzar and based in Athens, Greece. The project is backed by a seven-piece band, the Amadeus Orchestra (in some songs the Philarmonia Bulgarica) and the Fons Musicalis Choir. The project plays instrumental music composed and arranged by Samy, with Fofi as piano soloist.
Mastering engineer Vlado Meller (Sony Music Studios) who is credited for albums by Barbara Streisand, Prince, Celine Dion to name but a few, put his sonic expertise in the debut album Memories From A Dream. In 2005, the album was released on Polytropon Records and distributed by Universal Music.
A producer from Taxi.com, the world's leading independent A&R company, made the following critique:"the music is top quality as well as the production..."
You are invited to visit the official web site to listen to the music samples and learn more about the project. In the online store you may order your copy of the debut album and receive a 30% discount when you order piano sheet music . Feel free to contact Fofi and Samy; your comment and feedback are immensely welcomed.

Testimonials:
"We compete in the Film and TV music arena everyday with major publishing companies, and we feel like we have experience to evaluate a song's potential. Yours went beyond potential. It is a winner."
Songwriter, producer, publisher, Janet Fisher,
Goodnight Kiss Music, CA
"Your album was quite honestly one of the most magnificent things I’ve heard in a very long time..."
Executive director, Colin Lynch
R Cat Communications, Canada


album

My Interests

Music:

Member Since: 5/10/2006
Band Website: honesttouch.com
Band Members: Fofi Maniadaki, Samy Elgazzar
Influences: Ennio Moriconne, Andreas Vollenweider, David Lanz, George Winston, Sergej Rachmaninoff, Maurice Ravel, George Benson, to name but a few.
Sounds Like: We are very excited to connect with fans of Yanni, David Lanz, Ennio Morricone, Vangelis and Suzanne Ciani
Record Label: Polytropon Records
Type of Label: Indie

My Blog

Debut album reviewed by Anna Maria Stjärnell of Luna Kafe.

Honest TouchMemories from a DreamPolytroponHonest Touch consists of Samy Elgazzar and Fofi Manidiaki. Their debut is a lush, cinematic work of mostly instrumental songs."A Lonely Ride" is a sweeping, ...
Posted by Honest Touch on Sat, 14 Apr 2007 02:02:00 PST

Debut album reviewed by Sarah Tomblin of Amazing Sounds.

HONEST TOUCH:"MEMORIES FROM A DREAM"PolytroponThe soul of Honest Touch, a band from Athens, Greece, are composer Samy Elgazzar and pianist Fofi Maniadaki. They are joined by various musicians at the s...
Posted by Honest Touch on Sat, 14 Apr 2007 02:01:00 PST

Honest Touch is the winner of the IMA Vox Populi.

Our debut album was voted as the favorite album at the Independent Music Awards "Vox Populi" Jukebox in the New Age category. Although we didn't win the award, being voted as people's favorite is a wo...
Posted by Honest Touch on Sun, 25 Feb 2007 07:59:00 PST

Debut album reviewed by Dan MacIntosh of Indie-Music.com

Honest Touch is music that separates itself distinctly from much of today's dishonest, self-centered pop.Memories from a Dream is a large endeavor. This hour-long CD used the services of a symphony or...
Posted by Honest Touch on Tue, 06 Feb 2007 06:12:00 PST

The International Online Music Awards winners announced.

We won one of the four nominations of the International Online Music Awards. Fofi is the winner in the Best Keyboard Player category. The IOMAs is where songwriters, composers, musicians, and associat...
Posted by Honest Touch on Mon, 08 Jan 2007 09:02:00 PST

The IMA 2007 winners announced.

We deeply congratulate Jonathan Still for winning the New Age album category. We'd like to say a huge THANK YOU for all our fans and supporters for voting for us. Because of you, until this date, we h...
Posted by Honest Touch on Tue, 26 Dec 2006 08:18:00 PST

Fofi and Samy were interviewed by Paul Jury for Morpheus Music.

The project tells Paul Jury in this short interview how they started out, their musical style, their influences and other career related details. To read this interesting interview you may either visi...
Posted by Honest Touch on Tue, 26 Dec 2006 08:16:00 PST

Honest Touch is among the Finalists of the Independent Music Awards:

The debut album "Memories From A Dream" is just nominated among the Album Finalists of the 2007 Independent Music Awards (IMAs) in the New Age category. Among the judges of these prestigious awards ar...
Posted by Honest Touch on Sat, 04 Nov 2006 02:14:00 PST

Debut album reviewed by Colin Lynch of IOM Magazine.

There are some absolutely fabulous international composers and musicians knocking about and Honest Touch tend to do most of their knocking about in Athens, Greece. Thanks to the borderlessness of the ...
Posted by Honest Touch on Mon, 30 Oct 2006 11:09:00 PST

Debut album reviewed by Paul Jury of Morpheus Music.

Melodic new age piano music with orchestral, rock and pop influences. The central element in Honest Touch's sound is the lively piano work of Fofi Maniadaki - this is presented with accompaniments of ...
Posted by Honest Touch on Wed, 18 Oct 2006 12:25:00 PST