orchestra conductor
Biography
Eleni Papakyriakou comes from Thessaloniki, Greece. Her main studies of orchestra conducting were completed in 2015 at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna (Mag. art.). She is the chief conductor of the Passau University Orchestra since 2016 and worked at the Landestheater Niederbayern for 7 years, conducting opera performances. In 2022/2023 she founded her own professional symphony orchestra, Sinfonietta Passau, which celebrated its first concerts in March/April 2023 with great success.
In September 2020 she held an invitation - among 220 applications - for the international conducting competition La Maestra Paris, which took place in Philharmonie de Paris, with Paris Mozart Orchestra, and was live broadcasted on arte.tv. This led to a concert with Orchestre Pasdeloup in Philharmonie de Paris (Grande Salle Pierre Boulez) in December 2021.
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As a guest conductor she has also collaborated with the Thessaloniki State Symphony Orchestra in November-December 2022, with the Orchestra of the Music Academy "Louis Spohr" Kassel in October 2022 (lectureship summer semester 2022 and symphony concert) and with the Akademischer Orchesterverein Wien in 2019-2020.
Eleni Papakyriakou began the orchestral studies in 2007 in Greece with Myron Michailidis (GMD Theatre Erfurt) and Karolos Trikolidis (former chief conductor of the Thessaloniki State Symphony Orchestra). In 2010 she continued her studies at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna with the eminent professors Uroš Lajovic and Johannes Wildner, successors of the teaching tradition of Hans Swarowsky. In 2012/13 she took active part in regular courses with the famous conductors Bertrand de Billy and Fabio Luisi. As part of her Diploma Examination (June 2015), Eleni Papakyriakou debuted with the Vienna Chamber Orchestra in the Great Broadcasting Hall of the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation.
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While studying, Eleni Papakyriakou already took up the assistant conductor’s post at the Vienna International Opera Academy. She assisted in W. A. Mozart's "Così fan tutte" in 2014 and conducted some performances of J. Haydn's "La fedeltà premiata" in September 2015, for which she received enthusiastic reviews. On account of her high study performance, she was many times a scholarship holder, among others by the SYLFF Program of the Tokyo Foundation. Within the framework of the "SYLFF Chamber Music Seminars - Concert Excellence" she took over at short notice the conducting of an ensemble with students from New York, Paris and Vienna. The final concert was live broadcasted.
Eleni Papakyriakou was selected, after auditions, as active participant in important international master classes, among others in the "53. Weimar Master Classes" with Prof. Nicolás Pasquet. In many cases, the orchestra members chose her as one of the best participants, while she also conducted in the final concerts, for example in the "Young Conductors' Festival" in 2011 with The City of Thessaloniki Symphony Orchestra.
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Before her conducting studies, Eleni Papakyriakou also graduated musicology at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Dipl.). In the same time, she studied composition and holds Diplomas of piano, harmony, counterpoint, fugue and byzantine music.
Eleni Papakyriakou is also very familiar with contemporary music; she has conducted several premieres of contemporary works. Her musicological interest led her to research on compositions by J. Brahms, F. Schubert and A. Bruckner.
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