Myron Michailidis
Myron Michailidis (Greek: Μύρων Μιχαηλίδης;) is a Greek conductor, since 2011 Artistic Director of the Greek National Opera. During 2004/11 he was as General Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the Thessaloniki State Symphony Orchestra (TSSO) while from 1999 to 2004 he was Permanent Conductor at the Opera of Eastern Saxony in Germany.
Education
Michailidis was born in Crete. He studied piano with Dimitris Toufexis in Athens. He continued his musical studies at the Hochschule der Künste in Berlin, where he studied conducting with Hans-Martin Rabenstein.
Career
Michailidis has conducted the Berlin, Rome, Mexico and Jerusalem Symphony Orchestras, George Enescu (Bucharest) and Slovak Philharmonic (Bratislava) Orchestras, the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra and the National Radio Orchestra of Romania, as well as all Greek symphony orchestras and the orchestra of the Greek National Opera. He has collaborated with leading artists, including Aldo Ciccolini, Paul Badura-Skoda, Salvatore Accardo, Cyprien Katsaris, Ιvo Pogorelich, Lars Vogt, Shlomo Mintz, Misha Maisky, Vadim Repin, Martinos Tirimos, June Anderson, Cheryl Studer, Paata Burchuladze and Fazil Say.
His repertoire ranges from baroque to contemporary music and includes symphonic as well as choral works alongside operas. He is a great proponent of the music of Beethoven, Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff as well as the operas of Verdi, Puccini and Gounod. While with the TSSO, Michailidis led concerts at various festivals in Greece and abroad. In December 2007, during the celebration events of the Cultural Year of Greece in China, he took the Orchestra on tour in Beijing, China, host of the 2008 Olympic Games.
Recordings
Michailidis has recorded for EMI Classics and repeatedly for Naxos, as well as for numerous Greek labels and for the Greek National Radio. His recordings of works by Ildebrando Pizzetti for Naxos[1] received Five Diapasons from the French magazine «Diapason», in 2009. In addition, his «Greek Classics» CD featuring works by Greek composers[2] for the same label received the «Supersonic Award» by the «Pizzicato Classics» in Luxembourg and was recommended by Naxos for two Grammy awards.
Awards
In 2015 he was nominated Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Knight of the Arts and Letters) of the French Republic.
In 2009 Michailidis received the Honorable Award from the Greek Music and Theater Critics Association.[3]
References
- ^ "Reviews for Naxos recording of works by Ildebrando Pizzetti".
Ildebrando Pizzetti was a refined, conservative composer who, besides operas, wrote much instrumental music as well. His Concerto dell'estate (1928), Three Symphonic Preludes to Sophocles's Oedipus Rex (1904), the Prelude to Clitennestra (1964), Three Pieces for Orchestra: La Festa delle Panatenee (1936), all music worth hearing, are competently played by the Thessaloniki State Symphony Orchestra under Myron Michailidis.
- ^ "Reviews for Naxos recording of "Greek Classics" featuring works by 20th-Century Greek composers".
More appealing is Minas Alexiadis's Phrygian Litany, a processional whose take on so-called "Holy Minimalism" is informed by no mean tonal and textural subtlety. Ably accompanied by the Thessaloniki orchestra and Myron Michailidis, this vividly recorded and well documented disc is Kerkezos's most intriguing yet.
- ^ "Greek Music and Theater Critics Association Awards" (in Greek). "Avgi" Newspaper. 8 December 2009.