April 14, 2026 • 7 mins
Leo & Constantin Matros, Founders, Charleston Inernational Music Competition
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
iHeartMedia presents CEOs You Should Know. CEOs You should Know
Charleston is brought to you by SC two to fifty
Charleston Www dot SC two fifty Charleston dot org. And
welcome to CEOs you Should Know. On iHeartRadio. I'm Gary
David and excited to be joined today by two young
men who really have got something very special going on.
(00:21):
As we'd like to welcome in Leo and Constantine Matros
to CEOs you should know.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Guys. How you doing good? Good? Thank you for having us.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Gary, absolutely my pleasure. Now I gotta ask you. You
can't be to thirty yet, right, I mean, you guys
are still your twenties, right, Yeah, So.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
I'm twenty three and Constantine is twenty.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Okay, and you got your brothers and you've done something
really fantastic, not just in the Low Country, but all
across the state and the country and I guess the
world for that matter. You guys put together an online
music competition. Yes, give us some background here as to
how this. Apparently you're both musicians, I assume.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Yes, yes, So the way it started is we come
from a very musical family. So our mom and grandmother
they're both professional pianists and from a young age we
were five when we started, chose the violin as our
primary instrument. So we went through the whole music education process,
so we played in school orchestras, we had a private
music teacher. We grew up in Pittsburgh actually, so our
(01:26):
private teacher was a member of the Pittsburgh Symphony. So
we went through that process and then COVID hit my
senior year of high school, and when that happened, everything
was shut down, so no performances, no recitals, and all
of a sudden, we have all this free time as well.
So we decided to combine our passion for music and
(01:46):
entrepreneurship to create this online music competition.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
And the idea actually came to us.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
Because we participated in a lot of these online competitions
ourselves over the years, and so we thought we could
do it a lot better, and so we started very
very humble beginnings. So again we sorry with our mom
and grandma as judges, and over time this crew to
over eight thousand finalist musicians from over one hundred countries.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Wow yes, wow, Now, so Constantine, you're like you're twenty
years old and here you're a businessman and an entrepreneur,
and there's your brother. Just told us this thing grew
from you know, a few people to over eight thousand
that are getting involved. That's right, that's amazing, it really is.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Now.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Okay, so you're the little brother, right, okay, But who's
the brains of the organization here?
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Man?
Speaker 4 (02:36):
Well, I think I think we do a good job
of splitting the roles, plitting the brain.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Okay, all right, so how does this you're not stopping here,
and we'll get to that in a second here, But
how does this work? I guess, as you mentioned, Leo,
the pandemic forced us all just to stay at home
and go online. So that was the genesis for this.
But now you got eight thousand people involved in the
(03:01):
Charleston International Music Competition. Yes, how do you handle all
of that? I mean, that's that's a lot of folk.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
Yeah, And that's actually why we're so excited about Catalyst
by Beemok, which is this accelerator that were applied to
back last September, Because again, this whole time, last five years,
it's just been us organizing all of this, doing all
this work manually, so it's of course very difficult. But
now we have this great opportunity to Like you said,
(03:30):
eight thousand people is a lot, but there's also ways
to really grow from here as well, expand our team
and also our digital infrastructure as well. But yeah, to
answer your question, it's been all manual work from here,
but we're excited about the new direction as well.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
Okay, so tell us Constantine, somebody who is listening in
themselves or maybe a child or a family member who's
a musician and wants to get involved with what's going
on here, what do they need to do?
Speaker 4 (03:57):
So it's very simple as of right now. We just
courage musicians from all over the world to submit their
performance when they're ready to be evaluated, and they can
do that through a website and once they go through
the whole process that we offer, they get professional evaluation.
Then they can move forward with their musical journeys and
learn a lot from what we have to offer.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
So I get it.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
I don't know. Once a month it's like a monthly competition.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Is that how this works? Yeah, so this is a
monthly cycle.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
So again, we've been operating for over five years, so
we've hosted over sixty monthly competitions. So the way this
works is a musician submits their performance video online. We
have a jury of over forty judges from a dozen
countries consisting of professional musicians on various different instruments. So
these judges evaluate the performances and then the tenth of
(04:50):
each month is when we release the results. And for
our winners, we have certificates, we have trophies, we have
cash prizes for our top performers. We have social media
promotion on our YouTube channel, Instagram pages, and also we
have this very unique feature with our musician profile pages.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
So the way this works is.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
Each musician's name, photo, and bio is published as an
individual page on our website like a Wikipedia page, so
anytime somebody googles their name, it's the first thing that
pops up. So it's very useful for credentials and musicians.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Love it as well. And we have other prizes as well.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Yeah, so Constanta, you guys took this from the two
of you and and your mom and your grandma to
now some forty judges, eight thousand, as you mentioned entrants
in these monthly contests over the years. But you guys
want to take it a step further and go from
beyond competition into education, right.
Speaker 4 (05:51):
Yeah, So we see with BEMONC a lot of opportunity
to expand more into the music education side. And that's
what we're really trying to look forward to, working with
a lot of people in Charleston and figuring out the
way to move forward.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Okay, wow, uh b mot, What's what's the best way
to for folks to reach out to you, whether uh
they want to get involved in a competition? And I
don't know how to go about selecting who judges. I'm
sure you've got to have pretty good credentials to be a
part of that obviously, or somebody who just is a
lover of the arts and and wants to, you know,
(06:27):
get involved maybe from a financial standpoint, can they do that?
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Yes? Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
And on our website it's called Charlestoncompetition dot com. We
have a contact page and people can reach us via
our email. Our email addresses contact at Charlestoncompetition dot com.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
Horrific Leo and Constantine Montros a couple of twenty somethings
over here making waves in the in the in the
music industry. Congratulations on on how powerful, how far you've
come with this.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Thank you, Thank you Gerry, and thank you so much
for I.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
Wish you continue success again. Give us again that that
website to go to for more information.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Is charlestoncompetition dot com.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
You've been listening to Iheartradios CEOs you should know, heard
every Tuesday and Saturday morning right here on this iHeartRadio station.
iHeartMedia presents CEOs You Should Know. CEOs You should Know
Charleston is brought to you by SC two to fifty
Charleston Www dot SC two fifty Charleston dot org. And
welcome to CEOs you Should Know. On iHeartRadio. I'm Gary
David and excited to be joined today by two young
men who really have got something very special going on.
(00:21):
As we'd like to welcome in Leo and Constantine Matros
to CEOs you should know.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Guys. How you doing good? Good? Thank you for having us.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Gary, absolutely my pleasure. Now I gotta ask you. You
can't be to thirty yet, right, I mean, you guys
are still your twenties, right, Yeah, So.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
I'm twenty three and Constantine is twenty.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Okay, and you got your brothers and you've done something
really fantastic, not just in the Low Country, but all
across the state and the country and I guess the
world for that matter. You guys put together an online
music competition. Yes, give us some background here as to
how this. Apparently you're both musicians, I assume.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Yes, yes, So the way it started is we come
from a very musical family. So our mom and grandmother
they're both professional pianists and from a young age we
were five when we started, chose the violin as our
primary instrument. So we went through the whole music education process,
so we played in school orchestras, we had a private
music teacher. We grew up in Pittsburgh actually, so our
(01:26):
private teacher was a member of the Pittsburgh Symphony. So
we went through that process and then COVID hit my
senior year of high school, and when that happened, everything
was shut down, so no performances, no recitals, and all
of a sudden, we have all this free time as well.
So we decided to combine our passion for music and
(01:46):
entrepreneurship to create this online music competition.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
And the idea actually came to us.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
Because we participated in a lot of these online competitions
ourselves over the years, and so we thought we could
do it a lot better, and so we started very
very humble beginnings. So again we sorry with our mom
and grandma as judges, and over time this crew to
over eight thousand finalist musicians from over one hundred countries.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Wow yes, wow, Now, so Constantine, you're like you're twenty
years old and here you're a businessman and an entrepreneur,
and there's your brother. Just told us this thing grew
from you know, a few people to over eight thousand
that are getting involved. That's right, that's amazing, it really is.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Now.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Okay, so you're the little brother, right, okay, But who's
the brains of the organization here?
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Man?
Speaker 4 (02:36):
Well, I think I think we do a good job
of splitting the roles, plitting the brain.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Okay, all right, so how does this you're not stopping here,
and we'll get to that in a second here, But
how does this work? I guess, as you mentioned, Leo,
the pandemic forced us all just to stay at home
and go online. So that was the genesis for this.
But now you got eight thousand people involved in the
(03:01):
Charleston International Music Competition. Yes, how do you handle all
of that? I mean, that's that's a lot of folk.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
Yeah, And that's actually why we're so excited about Catalyst
by Beemok, which is this accelerator that were applied to
back last September, Because again, this whole time, last five years,
it's just been us organizing all of this, doing all
this work manually, so it's of course very difficult. But
now we have this great opportunity to Like you said,
(03:30):
eight thousand people is a lot, but there's also ways
to really grow from here as well, expand our team
and also our digital infrastructure as well. But yeah, to
answer your question, it's been all manual work from here,
but we're excited about the new direction as well.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
Okay, so tell us Constantine, somebody who is listening in
themselves or maybe a child or a family member who's
a musician and wants to get involved with what's going
on here, what do they need to do?
Speaker 4 (03:57):
So it's very simple as of right now. We just
courage musicians from all over the world to submit their
performance when they're ready to be evaluated, and they can
do that through a website and once they go through
the whole process that we offer, they get professional evaluation.
Then they can move forward with their musical journeys and
learn a lot from what we have to offer.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
So I get it.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
I don't know. Once a month it's like a monthly competition.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Is that how this works? Yeah, so this is a
monthly cycle.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
So again, we've been operating for over five years, so
we've hosted over sixty monthly competitions. So the way this
works is a musician submits their performance video online. We
have a jury of over forty judges from a dozen
countries consisting of professional musicians on various different instruments. So
these judges evaluate the performances and then the tenth of
(04:50):
each month is when we release the results. And for
our winners, we have certificates, we have trophies, we have
cash prizes for our top performers. We have social media
promotion on our YouTube channel, Instagram pages, and also we
have this very unique feature with our musician profile pages.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
So the way this works is.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
Each musician's name, photo, and bio is published as an
individual page on our website like a Wikipedia page, so
anytime somebody googles their name, it's the first thing that
pops up. So it's very useful for credentials and musicians.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Love it as well. And we have other prizes as well.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Yeah, so Constanta, you guys took this from the two
of you and and your mom and your grandma to
now some forty judges, eight thousand, as you mentioned entrants
in these monthly contests over the years. But you guys
want to take it a step further and go from
beyond competition into education, right.
Speaker 4 (05:51):
Yeah, So we see with BEMONC a lot of opportunity
to expand more into the music education side. And that's
what we're really trying to look forward to, working with
a lot of people in Charleston and figuring out the
way to move forward.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Okay, wow, uh b mot, What's what's the best way
to for folks to reach out to you, whether uh
they want to get involved in a competition? And I
don't know how to go about selecting who judges. I'm
sure you've got to have pretty good credentials to be a
part of that obviously, or somebody who just is a
lover of the arts and and wants to, you know,
(06:27):
get involved maybe from a financial standpoint, can they do that?
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Yes? Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
And on our website it's called Charlestoncompetition dot com. We
have a contact page and people can reach us via
our email. Our email addresses contact at Charlestoncompetition dot com.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
Horrific Leo and Constantine Montros a couple of twenty somethings
over here making waves in the in the in the
music industry. Congratulations on on how powerful, how far you've
come with this.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Thank you, Thank you Gerry, and thank you so much
for I.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
Wish you continue success again. Give us again that that
website to go to for more information.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Is charlestoncompetition dot com.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
You've been listening to Iheartradios CEOs you should know, heard
every Tuesday and Saturday morning right here on this iHeartRadio station.
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