Anastasios Strikos (Conductor & Pianist)


was born in Athens, Greece in 1972. He started learning music at an early age: accordion with Giorgos Kavroudakis at the Municipal Conservatory Acharnai (1984-1988). He continued with the piano and the theory of music, originally with Manos Skarvellis at the Protypo Peiramatiko Conservatory (1988-1994), later on with Sofia Yakoumidou and Yannis Toufexis (1994-1996) at the Hellenikon Conservatory and eventually with Dionissis Mallouchos at the Attikon Conservatory (1996-1998). In 1991 he was appointed to the Department for Theater Studies at the University of Athens.

He completed his studies in Greece as follows:

Study of Harmony, Diploma with honors: Hellenikon Cons., Athens 1996
Theater Studies, Diploma with honors: University of Athens 1998
Piano, Diploma with honors: Attikon Conservatory, Athens 1998

Additionally to his main studies, he attended several courses and seminars on various subjects: Music for the Theater and the Cinema (Philippos Nakas Conservatory with G. Bountouvis and D. Papadimitriou 1994-1996), piano (Oxana Yablonskaya, Nikolai Petrov), the Lied and its accompaniment, chamber music, classical indian music, a.m.o.

Apart from his native greek, he speaks five more languages: english, german, french, italian and russian and he has occasionally translated books into greek (theater pieces as well as theoretical books on music).

He began to study orchestra conducting in Athens with Miltos Logiadis.

In 1997 he was appointed at the Academy of Music in Würzburg, Germany (Hochschule für Musik Würzburg).

His teachers were Prof. Dr. Hermann Dechant (Orchestra Conducting), Prof. Jörg Straube (Choir Conducting) and Prof. Peter Falk (Opera). He graduated in 2001 (Diploma with Honors) and was on the same time appointed to the postgraduate course which he completed in March 2003 with the degree Konzertdiplom.

During this period he had the opportunity to appear as a pianist or conductor at several venues across Europe. He conducted, among others, the Academic Symphony Orchestra of Würzburg, the Würzburg Philharmonic Orchestra, the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra and last but not least the Chamber Orchestra Aura Amorosa which was created by him.

In 1998 he was awarded the exclusive scholarship of the Academy of Athens for Studies in Orchestra Conducting Abroad and in 2002 the Annual Scholarship of the Richard Wagner Foundation which gave him the rare opportunity to attend the Richard Wagner Festival of Bayreuth.

In 2001, before even having graduated the academy, he was employed at the Opera House Mainfranken Theater Würzburg as a musical coach and conductor. Additionally to his postgraduate studies he took part in international courses on Orchestra Conducting and attended private lessons with Carlo Maria Giulini in Milan.

Attempting a combination of artistic and scientific activity, he is working on his Doctorate at the Research Institute for the Musical Theater (Forschungsinstitut für Musiktheater) at the Bayreuth University under the guidance of Prof. Dr. Sieghard Döhring. His subject is „the multimedial musical theater of the greek composer Anestis Logothetis“.

Currently he lives in Vienna, where, additionally to his rich concert activity, he has been working as a pianist and conductor for the Vienna Boys Choir (Wiener Sängerknaben). He is regularly appearing with orchestras such as the Vienna Mozart Orchestra and his own Ensemble Retro. Recently he joined the Asia Tour of the Wiener Sängerknaben which took him to all major venues of China, Korea and Macao.