Choir of the Music Department of the University Athens, Niko Maliaras, Athens Philharmonia Orchestra & Byron Fidetzis
Biography Choir of the Music Department of the University Athens, Niko Maliaras, Athens Philharmonia Orchestra & Byron Fidetzis
Athens Philharmonia Orchestra
is a high-level, professional symphony orchestra established in November 2016. What makes it stand out from the other orchestras in Athens is that it gives priority to performing works of Greek, and Greek origin, composers. These works are unearthed and the music is restored by research teams within the music departments of Greek universities.
The first artistic period of the orchestra was highly prolific: over 15 concerts were performed presenting exclusively, or almost entirely, Greek works. This is not to say, however, that these are the limits of its repertoire.
Featured composers also included representatives of the artistic production of Northern Greece, among whom G.A. Papaioannou and the younger Simos Papanas. Artistic director and first conductor of the Philharmonia Orchestra is Greek maestro Byron Fidetzis.
Choir of the Music Department of the University Athens
was founded in 1998. Its members are mainly students of the University of Athens Department of Musicology who are interested in the international choir repertoire as well as modern Greek art music.
The Choir, although comprised of amateur musicians, has collaborated with almost all Greek professional orchestras and prominent conductors and has performed a vast amount of the symphonic-choral repertoire. Some of its performances of Greek works have been world premieres. The Choir has also visited several foreign countries in Europe and acted as an international ambassador of the University of Athens as well as Greek art music.
Byron Fidetzis
was born in Thessaloniki, where he also carried out his studies in Music, at its State Conservatory. He studied cello with Manolis Kazabakas and advanced music theory with Solon Michaelides. He owes a great deal of his musical learnedness to Aristotelion University’s Musical Department Orchestra, which he joined at the age of 15, under Yiannis Mantakas. The most significant learning school of all however, were the 5 five years he spent with the then Northern Greece Symphony Orchestra (1963 – 68). After being awarded a scholarship by the Greek State Scholarships Foundation, he went on to continue his cello studies at the Vienna University of Music and Performing Arts (with Vladimir Orlof, Andre Navarra and Senta Benes) where he received his diploma (1975). Parallel to this time, he also studied orchestra direction under Hans Swarofsky (at the very same university) where he was also awarded his diploma in orchestra direction (1973- 1977). He was fortunate enough to have great professors in Vienna too, – especially for the theory classes – such as Friedrich Neumann, Erwin Ratz, Alfred Uhl, Friedrich Cerha and Josef Mertin. He also attended various seminars held by conductors such as Miltiades Karydis (Vienna) and Otmar Suitner (Weimar).
