meet the musicians
Despina Panagiotou
Despina Panagiotou comes from a musical family and received her Monody Diploma from the Internafonal Conservatoire of Athens (2015).
She was trained at the Greek Nafonal Opera’s Youth Opera programme (first arfsfc season, 2017-2018) and performed the parts of ‘Ilia’ in W.A. Mozart’s Idomeneo (Alternafve Stage), of ‘Sorella Cercatrice’ in Suor Angelica and of one of the ‘amanf’ in Giacomo Puccini’s Il tabarro (Stavros Niarchos Hall).
She worked at the Opera and Ballet Theatre in Perm, under Teodor Currentzis’ arfsfc direcfon (2018-2020), and performed at internafonal stages and theatres as a member of the MusicAeterna choir.
Among the solo parts she performed were: of ‘Noémie’ in J. Massenet’s Cendrillon (director: Georgy Isaakyan, conductor: Valenfn Uryupin, November 2018); of ‘Despina’ in W.A. Mozart’s Cosi fan tu6e (director: Remus Ma„hias, conductor: Teodor Currentzis, May 2019); of ‘Susanna’ in W.A. Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro (director: Philipp Himmelmann, conductor: etr Belyakin, June 2019).
Katalin Kertész
Katalin Kertész was born in Budapest (Hungary) into a family of musicians, she received her first violin lesson from her father at the age of 7. After four years at the Béla Bartók Conservatoire, she studied in Germany with Eckhard Fischer (at the Hochschule für Musik Detmold) and Annette-Barbara Vogel (at the Folkwang Universität der Künste, Essen). Additional studies with André Gertler, Tibor Varga and Nelly Söregi-Wunderlich also provided important musical influences.
In the UK she has performed on both period and modern violin in a multitude of chamber groups and ensembles, including the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment,
the London Handel Orchestra, the Hanover Band, the Brook Street Band (including two Handel trio sonata albums on the Avie label) the City of London Sinfonia, the Philharmonia, and Ensemble Burletta.
Katalin is leader of the Kertész Quartet, a string quartet performing eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century repertoire on period instruments. With this ensemble she made a premiere recording of the four string quartets by the nineteenth-century Czech composer Wenzel Heinrich Veit for Toccata Classics, which earned high praise from reviewers on international platforms.
Katalin has performed in such prestigious venues as the Wigmore Hall, the Southbank Centre, the Royal Albert Hall (at the BBC Proms) and the Barbican. She has played multiple times in Windsor Castle, at the Queen’s official residence, where she performed in front of the Queen and Princess Ann. She has given concerts in Europe, South Africa, New Zealand, China and South America. She has been broadcast on BBC Radio 3, Classic FM and Austrian radio, ORF.
Katalin’s interest in the music of Hans Gál has led her to give numerous pioneering performances in the UK and South Africa, including the Scottish premiere of Gál’s 1933 violin sonata. She recorded Hans Gál’s sonatinas and piano quartet with pianist Sarah Beth Briggs and an album of chamber music for clarinet by Gál with Ensemble Burletta for Toccata Classics. Katalin recently moved to Greece.
Since living in Greece she formed a baroque chamber group with recorder player Yorgos Pavlakos and performs in various chamber configurations with pianists Katja Brandl Koehlen, Lucas Georgias and Maria Papapetropoulou. She also performed with Athens based baroque orchestra, Armonia Atenea (George Petrou, Markellos Chryssicos) and was invited to take part at the International Kalamata Music Days.
Zacharias Tarpagkos (Zach Tarpagos)
Zacharias is a permanent flutist of the Greek National Opera. His activity includes appearances as a soloist in concert venues around the world, such as Tchaikovsky Hall in Moscow, Boston Symphony Hall, Tokyo Opera City Concert Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Seine Musical in Paris, Teatro Real in Madrid, the Concert Hall of Athens and Thessaloniki, the Onassis Foundation Convert Hall, the Stavros Niarchos hall.
Collaborator of the Armonia Atenea/Kamerata Orchestra of Friends of Music, he has recorded with period instruments for Deutsche Grammophone and Decca Classics and has appeared at international festivals such as the BBC Proms in London and the Salzburg Festival in Austria.
His activity in chamber music has brought him invited to different parts of the world such as the International Flute Festival in Aveiro, Portugal, the International Chamber Music Festival in Ohrid and the Blue Rose Hall in Suntory Hall in Tokyo.
Zacharias organizes and supports stable musical education platforms for children who live in extremely unfavorable conditions in Greece and abroad, aiming to improve the quality of their lives through musical interaction.
Ioannis Konstantinos Giovanos
He was born in Athens and began his musical studies at the Cello at the Athens Conservatory, in the class of Mr. Nikos Kotzias, where he graduated with a Diploma in 2005, with a grade of “Excellent”.
In 2005 and with a scholarship from the Academy of Athens, he continued his studies at the Academy of Music in Münster, Germany with professors Matias de Oliveira Pinto in classical and Susanne Wahmhoff in baroque cello.
He has partcipated in classical and pre-classical music seminars in Greece and abroad, including Antonio Meneses, Peeter Paemuru, Gesa Bifio, Nomos Quartet, Nicholas Selo, Neue Düsseldorfer Hofmusik, Werner Matzke and others.
Since 2006 he is a substitute member of ERT Music Ensembles, Collegium Musicum String Ensemble, member of chamber music ensembles, as well as in 2011 a member of the Athens State Orchestra. As a collaborator of the Art Group “Parodos”, he has an ac?ve par?cipa?on as a musician, in actions and theatrical games for children.
Since 2011 he has been teaching in conservatories of Attica and the Region, such as the Piraeus Association, the Orfeio Conservatory of Athens, the Music Association of Aegina, the Municipal Conservatory of Ioannina and at the Athens Conservatoire College of Music . Also as a teacher, since 2016 he has been collabora?ng with the Fle[x] String Ensemble.
Vassilis Priovolos
Vassilis Priovolos is a musicologist and performer, with a DMA in “Baroque Music” with specification in the “Concertos of Vivaldi for Bassoon”.
He also holds a Master and a BA Degree in Music Performance from City University of London and Royal Northern College of Music respectively. Currently he completed his research (MPhil) in the “Redaction & Edition of Vivaldi’s manuscripts” in University of York (UK) with a scholarship from the Alexandros Onassis Foundation.
His last article was published by Mediterranean Chronicle Magazine in the field of Rhetoric and Music in the Baroque period. Vassilis Priovolos is currently the principal bassoonist of the Radio Symphony Orchestra as well as the Filarmonia Orchestra of Athens.
He has also collaborated with all major orchestras’ in Greece as well as with orchestras’ abroad such as: Orchestra of BBC North, Helslingborg Symphony Orchestra, RNCM Symphony Orchestra, Athens State Orchestra, Orchestra of Colors, National Opera of Athens, Ορχήστρα Soloists of Patras, Athens Camerata. He has had several performances as a guest soloist in Germany, UK, Italy, and Cyprus.
He was a Lecturer in the Faculty of Music Studies (Ionian University) as well as in the Faculty of Italian Language and Literature (University of Athens ). He is also an active tutor in the Conservatory of Athens, Conservatory of Municipality of Hrakleio Crete and Patras.
He has also taught at the Bracche International Music Festival. Since 1995, is leading the Medieval Consort “Lyrae Cantus” as a General Manager, which has collaborated with the composer Vaggelis Papathanassiou for the movie “El Greco’.
Since 2019 he is responsible as a Manager for new Business Development in Filarmonia Orchestra of Athens. In 2024 he has been awarded by the Society of Greek Writers for his excellent artistic creation in the field of Culture.
Alexandros Gkonis
Born in Athens, Greece. He studied violoncello at the Philippos Nakas Conservatory and political science at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens.
He continued his studies at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague, in the Netherlands, where he studied conducting and composition. Since 2012, he has been working steadily on both theatre and music productions.
As a musician and composer, he has collaborated with the National Theatre of Greece, the National Theatre of Northern Greece, the Greek Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Greek National Opera, the Municipal and Regional Theatres of Kavala, Serres and Crete, Porta Theatre, Vassilakou Theatre, New Hellenic Theatre of Giorgos Armenis etc.
Ηe has participated in festivals such as All of Greece, One Culture, Filippoi-Kavala Festival, Open Sails Festival in Chania (Crete) etc. He has given concerts in Korzo Theatre Den Haag, Splendor Amsterdam, Muziekgebouw Eindhoven, TivoliVredenburg in Utrecht, Parnassos Literary Society in Athens etc.
Theodoros Kitsos
Theodoros Kitsos read music at the Ionian University while studying the guitar with Costas Grigoreas. Thereafter he moved to the U.K in order to specialize in early music performance, studying historical plucked instruments (lute, theorbo, baroque guitar) with Elizabeth Kenny.
As a scholar of Michelis Foundation, he completed his Masters at the University of York. He continued his studies with scholarships by the Onassis Foundation and the University of York, and in 2005 he was awarded his PhD.
He frequently presents lectures, and his papers have been published in journals such as The Lute, Mousicology, Mousikos Loghos and Annals for Aesthetics, as well as in various books.
He has taken part in recordings (Decca, Naïve, MDG, Aparté et al) and concerts in Greece, U.K., Spain, Italy, Germany, France, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, The Netherlands, Russia, Monaco, among others, with various ensembles (Armonia Atenea, Latinitas nostra, Pomo d’oro, Yorkshire Baroque Soloists, Festspiel Orchester Göttingen [FOG], Wroclaw Baroque Orchestra et al).
He is an assistant professor at the School of Music of the Aristotelian University of Thessaloniki, Greece.
Georgios Angelakis
Georgios Angelakis is a trombone graduate of the State Conservatory of Thessaloniki, in the class of G. Kokkoras.
He is also a graduate of the School of Music Studies of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. He currently works as a permanent music teacher in Primary Education and as a trombone teacher at the Municipal Conservatory in Trikala, as well as at the Music School in Trikala.
He has attended trombone Master Classes by Zoltan Kiss, Dirk Ellerkamp, Jiggs Whigham, Jay Friedman, Spyrou Farougias, Kostas Avgerinos, and others. He is a member of the Symphony Orchestra of the Municipality of Larissa.
As a PhD candidate in the School of Music Studies of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, supervised by professor Theodoros Kitsos, his research concerns the reconstruction of the sound of the trombone and its role in the works of Italian composers of the early Baroque.
Anastasia Miliori
Anastasia Miliori moves stylistically between Early and Contemporary Music. She holds a diploma in violin and classical singing and graduated from the department of Modern Greek and Modern Greek Medieval Philology at the Athens School of Philosophy.
She continued her musical studies at the State Music Academies in Trossingen and Stuttgart, where she studied Early Music, specializing in Baroque violin and singing, with Anton Steck and Jan Van Elsacker respectively, and classical singing with Frederique Friess.
She has performed with ensembles, orchestras and baroque orchestras, including: B-A-C-H ensemble-Stuttgart (conducted by MonicaVasquez), Collegium Musicum Stuttgart, Cappella Principale, European Union Baroque Orchestra (conducted by Lars Ulrik Mortensen), Bern Consort – (conducted by Jorg Ritter), Patras Orchestra (conducted by George Petrou), ASON (conducted by Nikos Athanasopoulos), Unesco World Youth Orchestra Jeunesse Musicale (conducted by Josep Vicent).
She has participated in recordings for MDG, Mulatina Records and Logos Music and she was a member of the jazz ensemble TimeShift Trio, with a large number of performances in Baden-Württemberg, Germany.
She is a founding member of the baroque ensemble Ensemble Diverse and Bizarre with which she has performed – among others – at the Alternative Stage of the S. Niarchos Foundation, at the Philippos Nakas Hall, at the Piraeus Association, at the Athens Baroque Festival, at auditoriums in Rhodes, Kos, Patmos and Leros under the auspices of the South Aegean Region, at the Finska Kyrkan in Stockholm.
Since 2017 she has been the artistic director of the Athens Baroque Festival. She teaches music in Primary Education and is a violin teacher at the Municipal Conservatory of Korydallos.
The Clerkes Extraordinarie
The Clerkes Extraordinarie is a vocal and instrumental ensemble founded in 2019 by Iason Marmaras to explore the extremes of the expressive palette in the performance of music around 1600.
Through their distinctive sound, the Clerkes Extraordinarie seek to challenge the sound of early music. Historical pronunciation and rhetorical declamation, instrumental doubling of vocal lines, various kinds of ornamentation both as part of the basic sound of the ensemble and as expressive devices; all means are employed both to dazzle the senses and to move the passions.
The ensemble made its debut with Threnodiae Germanicae at the Sacred Music Festival of organised by the GNO.
