Konstantia Gourzi – Composer & Conductor

Konstantia Gourzi sees “composing and conducting as a whole, as an inseparable relationship”. Her combination of the roles of composer and conductor is unusual and extraordinary, influenced by different cultures and musical traditions. Creating connections between them constantly inspires her new performance concepts.

Konstantia Gourzi’s compositions include orchestral works, chamber music and solo pieces, as well as music theatre and film music. She has been commissioned to write for renowned musicians and ensembles, the Lucerne Festival, the Grafenegg Festival, the Molyvos Festival, the Eigenzeit Festival, the Berlin State Opera, the Bavarian State Opera, the hr Symphony Orchestra, the Bavarian Radio, the Ensemble Musica Nova Israel, the Ensemble New Music Moscow, the Athens State Orchestra, the Nuremberg Philharmonic, the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra and the ARD Music Competition.

In Konstantia Gourzi’s music there is an inner glow and a great dramatic power that comes from stillness and centring. For her compositions, she chooses timeless themes and extra-musical content that are precisely calculated in their proportions of form and time. Her music is connected with the desire to create a sound space in which the listener is given the freedom to perceive himself.

Always on the lookout for new performance concepts for contemporary music, she initiated and directed various ensembles, beginning with the ensemble attacca berlin and the ensemble echo. After teaching at the Hanns Eisler University of Music in Berlin, she was appointed Professor for Ensemble Direction of New Music at the Munich University of Music and Theatre in 2002. There, she founded the ensemble oktopus for modern music. This was followed by the network and ensemble opus21musikplus with the aim of expanding new music together with other art forms, and musical genres across borders.

Konstantia Gourzi’s artistic path has been documented in diverse radio and television broadcasts and livestreams, as well as in recordings on NEOS, NAXOS, Sony Classical and ECM. The portrait CDs Anájikon (ECM, 2021) and Whispers (SONY Classical, 2022) were nominated for the “Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik” and “International Classical Music Awards”. Whispers received over 13 million views on music streaming platforms in one year after the album’s release.

Konstantia Gourzi was born in Athens and studied piano, composition and conducting in her hometown and at the HdK (UdK) Berlin from 1988 to 1992. She lives in Munich.

May 2023