An evening of Eptanisiaka Opera with Irini Karagianni & Yiannis Christopoulos

BIOGRAPHY

Irini Karagianni
Greek mezzo soprano Irini Karagianni has followed a very diverse career that brought her in major opera houses including the Teatro alla Scala, Opera di Roma, Teatro Massimo in Palermo, Oper Frankfurt and the Israeli Opera of Tel Aviv. An important part of her activity is dedicated to the music of the 18th century and has participated in award winning recordings of works by Haendel receiving praise from the international press as one of today’s foremost interpreters of his music.

Yiannis Christopoulos
An Athens-born tenor, he completed his musical studies in Cremona, Italy, with an Alexandra Trianti Scholarship in 1998. He has performed leading roles in the classical and contemporary repertories at the Athens Concert Hall, the Thessaloniki Concert Hall and the Greek National Opera, and worked with every major Greek orchestra. He has appeared at international festivals and stages (at Carnegie Hall, the Madrid National Music Auditorium, Florentine Musical May and the Cairo Opera). His recordings include Thanos Mikroutsikos’ Return of Helen and In My Home, a Perfect Stranger, Tasos Ioannidis’ Revelation of John, and Giorgos Hadzinasios’ Chronicle of the Fall of Asia Minor. From 2008 to November 2012 he served as the president of the GNO Protagonists’ Society.

Dimitris Yakas
Dimitris Yakas was born in Athens in 1957. He studied the piano at the National Conservatory in Athens, from where he graduated in 1977. He continued his education at the ECOLE NORMALE DE MUSIQUE DE PARIS (piano, chamber music and piano coaching [formation de chef de chant]) and had lessons in vocal accompaniment with Dalton Baldwin.

In 1882, as a result of winning a competition, he took up a position as coach at the Paris Opera, where he remained until 1991. During this period he worked with many major conductors and singers, with whom he gave concerts in Paris as well as other French cities and at Festivals (Tours, Pau, Strasbourg, Festival de Marmande, de Sully, du Comminges etc). He worked many times as coach at the Opera de Lyon at the invitation of Kent Nagano. In 1990 he played at two concerts in Paris, at which the complete works of Berlioz for voice and piano were performed (with M.Olmeda, B. Uria-Monzon etc).

In 1991 he settled in Athens and became one of the principal collaborators of the Greek National Opera and the Megaron: The Athens Concert Hall, working with conductors as M.Viotti, R.Bonynge, D.Renzetti, J.Arnel, A.Allemandi, etc. He has coached the singers for the world Premieres of many operas written by Greek composers [Mikis Theodorakis: MEDEA, Bilbao 1991, Thanos Mikroutsikos THE RETURN OF HELENA, Athens 1993, Arghyris Kounadis: BACCHAE, Athens 1996 etc.] and has played for Master classes of J. Pilou, Ch.Ludwig, D.Evangelatos, Anna Tomowa – Sintow, Alison Pearce etc. He regularly gives concerts as an accompanist in Greece and abroad (M.Krilovic, J.Pilou, A.Baltsa, D.Evangelatos, D.Kavrakos, El.Vidal, A.Cognet, D.Theodossiou etc.)