Kornilios Michailidis appointed Conductor-in-Residence
Michailidis will conduct several exciting projects in the coming season, including an abbreviated version of Mozart’s Magic Flute, a concert of new symphonic music by Högni Egilsson, and the Icelandic premiere of Daníel Bjarnason’s From Space I Saw Earth, which was composed for the LA Philharmonic’s centenary celebration concert and is written for symphony orchestra and three conductors, as well as a season concert with works by Mozart and Beethoven in collaboration with violin virtuoso Simos Papanas.
He will also assist Eva Ollikainen, the ISO’s, Chief Conductor and Artistic director in rehearsals and preparation for the season’s concerts, including performances of Wagner’s Die Walküre in collaboration with the Icelandic Opera and the Reykjavík Arts Festival. He will also instruct in the ISO’s Conducting Academy for music students.
Kornilios Michailidis studied piano at the École Normale de Musique in Paris and at the Jacobs School of Music of Indiana University in the US, and completed his master’s degree in conducting from the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki in 2018. He was assistant conductor of the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra in 2016–2017 and of the Orchestra Philharmonique de Radio France in 2018–2020. He has conducted various orchestras including the Lahti Symphony Orchestra and the Greek Radio Symphony Orchestra, Athens and Thessaloniki State Orchestras , and has conducted performances of Mozart’s Magic Flute at the Teatro Real in Madrid.
“I am incredibly excited and honoured to be joining the extraordinary Iceland Symphony Orchestra and its artistic team and I look forward to continuing our fruitful collaboration, which started off with very promising, magnetic chemistry. I would particularly like to thank Eva Ollikainen, Lára Sóley Jóhannsdóttir and the Orchestra for their trust and I look forward to our music making!” said Kornilios Michailidis.
Eva Ollikainen ISO’s, Chief Conductor and Artistic director said, “We are all thrilled to have highly talented Kornilios Michailidis joining the Iceland Symphony Orchestra family and we can’t wait to start our artistic collaboration.”