About me

Yours trulyAs is probably evident from the title of this site, my name is Matthew Panayiotou. I was born on 10th June 1981 in Harlow, Essex, UK but moved to the Mediterranean island of Cyprus when I was only 4 years old.

In Cyprus, I attended a state primary school but then joined The English School, a public secondary school in order to do my O' and A' Levels. After graduating in 2000 I joined the Cyprus National Guard for a mandatory 26-month military service. Upon successfully training in Greece to become an officer, I returned to Cyprus where I served as platoon leader for a group of armoured vehicles. I was discharged in 2002 at the rank of 2nd Lieutenant. I then returned to the UK to study  Physics with Medical Physics at  University College London from where I graduated in September 2005. After a short period as Productions Operator at London based e-publishing company Justis Publishing Ltd I have recently taken up a Software Programming position at Total Systems Plc.

On the more "artistic" side, I started taking piano lessons at the age of 7 and managed to pass Grade 5 of the Royal Schools of Music but I wasn't really enjoying it and didn't have much of a flare for it so when I joined the English School I gave up the piano and started French Horn lessons. I was (and remain) a much better French Horn player than I ever was a piano player. In 1996 I joined the Cyprus State Youth Orchestra that offered me the great opportunity to perform works of a wide variety of composers both in Cyprus and abroad. A few of my favourite pieces are Mozart's 4 Horn Concertos and the 3rd movement, Notturno, from Mendelssohn's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" excerpts of which you can hear at the end of the " History and Physics of the French Horn " article in the articles section of the site.