Pianobar.gr, Live Music (Athens)

Steven Kokkas is an Athens pianist and singer who takes a mobile piano bar to wherever your event is. He arrives with an electric stage piano and a speaker, sets the two of them up himself, and by his own account has the room sounding right about half an hour before your guests arrive. The kit runs on battery, so a balcony, a roof garden, a courtyard or a boat works as well as a room with a socket in the wall.

Volume is what he sells

His own line for it: "We pride ourselves on precision, ensuring the volume is always perfectly balanced so guests can listen and participate without disturbing neighbors." He is explicit that this is not a concert set. The playing sits under the conversation, and people join in when they feel like it.

Solo, or piano and voice as a pair

The usual booking is one performer, piano and voice at the same time, which he calls a one man show. For Greek entekhno and elafrolaiko he works as a two person piano and voice duo. The rest of the book is jazz standards of the Fly Me To The Moon sort, music for dinner, and rock ballads pitched low enough to hold up outdoors.

• Solo piano and voice, one performer covering the whole set
• Piano and voice duo for Greek entekhno and elafrolaiko, two performers
• Jazz standards and music for dinner, the Fly Me To The Moon end of the repertoire
• Rock ballads arranged to work outdoors without turning into a show
• He brings the instrument, an electric stage piano, the speaker and the rest of the kit
• Battery powered setup for balconies, roof gardens, courtyards and boats with no power nearby
• Volume kept under the conversation by design, so guests can talk through it and sing along
• Home dinners and private gatherings through his second service, Musicians At Home
• Singing telegrams, a sung message delivered in person

In his own description of the day, the offer is three moments, and they are the calm ones rather than the dancing: the cocktail gathering before the ceremony, the grounds of the church while guests wait for the couple, and the dinner afterwards. One artist plays and sings across all three.

He describes it as live background music at a volume that does not get in the way of people mingling, and says he brings everything the set needs, the electric piano included, to wherever you are. Tell him early which part of the day you want filled, because those quieter stretches are what this act is built for.

His events page is a dated diary of bookings, and it is mostly residency work: a restaurant or a hotel that has him back week after week. Through the Athens winter that means Tartarughe on Dekelias in Nea Filadelfia, near weekly, and the Gustav Atrium on Charilaou Trikoupi in the centre.

Summers move to the islands. He played the 2015 to 2018 seasons on Spetses, and among his longest runs anywhere is the piano bar of the Hotel Spetses. The last two summers have been on Ikaria, where he lives about half the year: the Karras Star Hotel and Kozi Blu in Evdilos, among others. Those island dates are hotel, restaurant and bar residencies rather than weddings.

He has worked professionally in Greece since 1991, studied at the Royal Conservatory of Music and has five albums out. The diary carries a note of its own that not every booking is listed, for client privacy.