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Don Marrazzo

Voice

Don Marrazzo possesses extensive experience as a voice teacher and arts management professional in the areas of executive management; artistic administration; programming and casting; young artist program development; and community and educational engagement. Mr. Marrazzo has maintained a voice teaching studio since 2002, and his students have performed with opera companies; orchestras; concert venues, and Broadway and Off-Broadway theaters internationally including the Metropolitan Opera; the Lyric Opera of Chicago; The Dallas Opera; The Glimmerglass Festival; the Santa Fe Opera; Staatsoper Stuttgart; Staatstheater Nürnberg, Opéra de Lyon; Oper Bonn; Festival d’Aix-en-Provence; the Dutch National Opera; Tiroler Festspiele Erl; The Grote Zangers Series at the Muziekgebouw; the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, the Concertgebouw Orchestra; the Philadelphia Orchestra; the Muziekgebouw; the American Globe Theatre; and the Richard Rodgers Theatre. They have won awards and honors from the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions; the George London Foundation; the Sullivan Awards; The Hnatyshyn Foundation; the Sylva Gelber Music Foundation, the Ferruccio Tagliavini International Competition for Opera Singers; the Alumni Enterprise Awards from The Music Academy of the West; the International Vocal Competition of s’Hertogenbosch (IVC); the Fritz and Lavinia Jensen Foundation Competition; the Schuyler Foundation for Career Bridges; the Anna Sosenko Assist Trust; the Canada Council for the Arts; the VSB Fonds; the Joop VandenEnde Foundation; and Classical Young Masters. They have been accepted into prestigious opera studio and training programs including the Lyric Opera of Chicago’s Ryan Opera Center, Santa Fe Opera’s Apprentice Artist Program, the Equilibrium Young Artists Program, and The Opera Academy at the Royal Danish Opera.

Prior to joining The Musical Horizons Conservatory as Head of Vocal Studies and Professor of Voice, Mr. Marrazzo was Head of the Classical Voice Department and Professor of Voice at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam (CvA). Under his leadership, the curriculum, level of student achievement, and international profile of the CvA’s Classical Voice Department grew exponentially. Before his work at the CvA, Mr. Marrazzo was the Executive Director of Astral Artists, an organization committed to the discovery, development, and promotion of the nation’s most gifted emerging classical musicians. Prior to his tenure at Astral Artists, Mr. Marrazzo was the Director of Casting & Artistic Operations for Glimmerglass Opera in Cooperstown, New York. He revitalized Glimmerglass’ mainstage casting, raised its acclaimed Young American Artists Program to an unprecedented level of achievement, and created and fostered collaborations with a number of renowned organizations, companies, and artists including the New York Festival of Song (NYFOS), The Morgan Library and Museum, the Bavarian State Opera, and baritones Håkan Hagegård and François Le Roux. Mr. Marrazzo first joined Glimmerglass as its Director of Public Relations, serving as chief representative to the local, regional, national, and international media, and liaison to the local community. A strong advocate of arts education, Mr. Marrazzo created numerous educational outreach initiatives during his tenure at Glimmerglass.

Mr. Marrazzo has served as a judge for the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, presented seminars and masterclasses for the Graduate Vocal Arts Program at Bard College Conservatory of Music; the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS); Opera Viva! In Verona, Italy; Red River Lyric Opera; Penn State University; and Temple University and has served as a presenter and panelist for singer training forums with OPERA America.

A native of Bucks County, Pennsylvania, Mr. Marrazzo holds degrees in vocal performance from the Curtis Institute of Music and the Sweelinck Conservatorium, as well as an M.M. in Classical Voice Pedagogy and Performance and an M.F.A in Voice Pedagogy for Musical Theatre from Penn State University.

Charikleia Glavopoulou

Voice

Soprano Charikleia Glavopoulou was born in Drama, Greece. She studied at the New Conservatory of Thessaloniki under Varvara Tsampali and graduated with a First Class Solo Diploma. She has attended masterclasses and lessons with Costas Pashalis, Nikos Zahariou, Eleni Karouso, Gabriella Ravazzi, Gabriele Pisani, Sergio Magli, F.M. Carminatti, Czaba Vegvary, George Hadjinikos, Daphne Evaggelatou, Mirella Freni and Cheryl Studer.

She went on to study at postgraduate level in Genova, Italy, with Gabriella Ravazzi and later in Athens with Varvara Gavakou.

Her Italian debut was in the lead role of Silvia in Mascagni’s Zanetto at the Teatro Mancinelli in Orvieto. In Italy, she gave vocal recitals in many cities and also toured with Gruppo Caronte. She also performed themed recitals with works by Greek composers at Teatro Carlo Felice Auditorium in Genova and at the Fiera Internazionale Di Milano.

In Greece she has collaborated with the Thessaloniki Municipal and State Orchestras, Thessaloniki Concert Hall, Thessaloniki Opera and other cultural institutions interpreting roles in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, Mozart’s Requiem, Menotti’s O Pulchritudo, Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi, Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel, Verdi’s La Traviata and Rigoletto. She has sung under the direction of distinguished maestros such as Loukas Karytinos, Nikos Athinaios, Dimitris Agrafiotis, Viron Fydetzis, Alkis Baltas and Luciano Di Martino.

Mrs Glavopoulou has performed in many music festivals around Greece as well as in solo and chamber music recitals. She performed Respighi’s Il Tramonto with the Aimilios Riadis Quartet at the Dimitria festival; she has also premiered works by Nicolaou with the Macedonian Saxophone Quartet at the Greek Composers Forum as part of the Dimitria festival. She interpreted the lead role of Margarita in the music-theatre show The story of Margarita…by Faust performing works by Schubert, Gounod, Verdi, Boito, Berlioz at the Centre for Drama Research. In 2013 she appeared at the Rhodes and Milos festivals and recently made a guest appearance at an Opera Gala homage to Verdi at the Tellogleio Cultural Centre.

She has been active as a singing teacher since 2000 and has worked at the New Conservatory of Thessaloniki, Music College, National Conservatory and the Municipal Conservatories of Lamia, Drama and Kavala. Since 2012 she has been teaching at the Summer Academy organized by the Municipal Conservatories Network.

Her students have excelled in competitions and have participated by means of audition in masterclasses organized by the Thessaloniki and Athens Megaron as well as other institutions. They have collaborated as soloists with the Thessaloniki State and Municipal orchestras and have performed at the Thessaloniki Megaron amongst distinguished singers under conductors such as Nikos Athinaios, Carolos Trikolidis, Miltos Logiadis and Andreas Tselikas. They have performed at the Centre for Music, the Municipal Theatres of Mitilini, Corfou, Lefkada, the Vafopoulos Cultural Centre of Thessaloniki and the Veria Megaron. In December 2012 her students performed three lead roles at Leoncavallo’s I Pagliacci at Aneton Municipal Theatre of Thessaloniki.

Mrs Glavopoulou is also a graduate of the Law School of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.

Pantelis Polychronidis

Collaborative piano / Coach

Dr. Pantelis Polychronidis is a collaborative pianist, educator and scholar. Since 2014, he is Senior Lecturer at the University for Music and Performing Arts in Vienna at the Department of Voice/Opera. Previously, he served as Assistant Professor in Residence at the University of Nevada, as Visiting Professor of Music at the University of Michigan, as faculty member at Vienna Conservatory and at the Institute for the International Education of Students (IES) in Vienna.

He received his Bachelor in Musical Studies from the University of Athens with emphasis on ethnomusicology and historical musicology. He obtained his M.A. in Solo Piano and Collaborative Piano with Maxim Mogilevsky from Bowling Green State University, Ohio. Pantelis holds a Doctorate of Musical Arts (DMA) in Collaborative Piano (opera coaching, Lied accompaniment and chamber music) from the University of Michigan, where he studied with Martin Katz. While at Michigan he accompanied the studio classes of the late Shirley Verrett. During his U.S. studies Dr. Polychronidis was supported by a Fulbright and an Onassis scholarship. He has completed two Postdoctoral Programs at the University for Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, in Lied accompaniment and Chamber music, with Charles Spencer and Roswitha Heintze respectively.

His artistic development was strongly influenced by Eric Schneider und Deen Larsen, by masterclasses with the pianists Nicolai Petrov, Bernard Ringeissen, Paul Badura Skoda, Lazar Berman, Martino Tirimo, Helmut Deutsch und Wolfram Rieger; as well as with singers like Elly Ameling, Rudolf Piernay, Edith Wiens, Christa Ludwig und Edda Moser.

Combining the best elements of the European and American musical traditions, he is equally at home in the art song and the operatic repertoire as well as in chamber music. Highlights of his career were performances in the Kennedy Center of Performing Arts in Washington D.C, the Palais des Beaux Arts in Brussels and the Musikverein in Vienna.

Dr. Polychronidis is in demand as a collaborative pianist and coach, and he regularly works for the “International Hans Gabor Belvedere Singing Competition”, the International J. Haydn Voice Competition and the International J. Brahms Song Competition, as well as the Weimar Lyric Opera Studio. He regularly collaborates with artists such as Annely Peebo, Anita Hartig, Daniela Fally, Lena Belkina, Rebecca Nelsen and Raehann Bryce-Davis.

Nikos Kyriosoglou

Piano

Nikos Kyriosoglou was born in Serres, Northertn Greece, where he started the piano of twelve. His efforts were so fruitful that three years later he was accepted as a student of Niko Tasopoulo at the State Conservatory of Thessaloniki and later he earned a bachelor’s degree in music from the University of Macedonia-Department of Music Science and Art under the tutelage of the Russian pianist Tatiana Popandopulo. Following his graduation,in 2002, Nikos Kyriosoglou did postgraduate studies at the University of Music in Freiburg, Germany with renowned Professors Gilead Mishory and Pi-Hsien Chen and at the Lemmens Institute in Belgium with Professor Alan Weiss, his principal mentor. Other pianists who had a great influence in his artistic taste include Lazar Berman, Hans Leygraf, Roberto Szidon. .Kyriosoglou has been awarded first prizes and honors in several internationalcompetitions, such as the Thymis Piano Competition, the Muse International Piano Competition and the EPTA Piano Competition. He is also a very active chamber musician, appearing frequently in the most prestigious concert halls of Greece (AthensMegaron, Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center, Thessaloniki Concert Hall) and throughout Europe (Cyprus, Germany, France, Switzerland, Portugal, Bulgaria, U.K.),making him one of the most celebrated pianists of his generation in Greece. An avid chamber musician, Nikos Kyriosoglou has partnered with renowned peers including Rainer Moog, Rudolf Koelman, Geza Hosszu Legocky, Adriana Contino, Young-Chang Cho, Denis Bouriakov and Christoph Henkel and has performed on virtually every important concert series in Greece. He continuously presents masterclasses and has appeared as a collaborative pianist in the Porto Carras Music Masterclasses, the Montpellier International Summercourses and the Courchevel International Music Academy am ong others.As a soloist, Nikos Kyriosoglou has concertized extensively, performing with all the major Greek orchestras, successfully exploring a repertory that exceeds 17 major concertos, ranging from Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Saint-Saens and Liszt to Gershwin,Cage and other masters of the 20thcentury. He has also participated in numerous summer festivals, including the Aegina International Music Festival, Nafplion International Music Festival, Rhodes Festival, and many others. Kyriosoglou maintains active involvement with works of the 20thand 21stcenturies,performing solo and chamber music concerts in his home country, Cyprus, Germany and France.A recording artist, Kyriosoglou joined musical partner Malwina Sosnowski in Montpellier for a recital that was broadcasted by Radio France and Mezzo in 2008. Two years later, Radio BBC 3 selected his recording sand rebroadcasted it to Radio Polskie, NRK, Sveriges Radio, MR3-Bartók Rádió, Radio Romania.His various interests for the piano repertory range from baroque music and early classical period to the late romantic and contemporary period. His interpretation seeks to serve the composers’ demands with clarity and precision, as well as to bring out passion and commitment by using the piano as an instrument of expression and deepening the audience’s connection to music. Kyriosoglou continually explores the boundaries of the repertory and uses it as a vehicle to experiment with the contemporary and unexplored.

Parallel to his busy schedule of concert engagements, Nikos Kyriosoglou devotes much time to teaching, working alongside young talents to foster the next generation of classical music ambassadors and continues to serve as collaborative pianist at the State Conservatory.

Vanessa Athanasiou

Chamber music

Vanessa obtained her violin diploma with distinction from the Conservatory Of Northern Greece in Thessaloniki, in the class of Guinka Guitchkova. She continued her studies in the Hans Eisler Music Academy in Berlin, in the Bulgarian State Academy of Music (Bachelor of Music in Performance) and in the Royal Northern College of Music (Master of Music in Performance). As an orchestra musician, she has played with prestigious ensembles in Greece and abroad (Camerata orchestra of the friends of Music, Orchestra of Colours, Sinfonietta chamber orchestra, Athens Philarmonia, Ensemble Modern Orchestra, Il pomo d’ Oro, Balthasar Neumann Ensemble). Since 2017 she collaborates with the Alternative Stage of the Greek National Opera. Vanessa is an active chamber musician and has participated in numerous festivals all over Europe as a member of various ensembles. In 2006 she established Lefkas Music Week summer festival. She holds a degree in Greek Philology from Aristotelion University of Thessaloniki and a Master degree in Cultural Management.