About
Konstantia Gourzi – Composer･Conductor
Athens-born composer, conductor and university professor Konstantia Gourzi has been
enriching the contemporary music scene for over 30 years with her distinctive musical
language and interdisciplinary perspective. Her music is characterised by an inner luminosity and quiet, dramatic intensity – it does not shout but emanates from a place of centredness and dialogue with silence.
She sees composition and conducting as inextricably linked – as a creative interaction that has a fundamental influence on her work. Her compositions range from orchestral and chamber music to solo pieces, music theatre, film music and cross-genre formats. Social issues, spirituality and experiences of nature are central impulses that she translates into music – with a unique sensitivity to the balance between complexity and simplicity.
She studied piano, composition and conducting in Athens and at the Berlin University of the Arts (now UdK). Her artistic development was influenced by György Kurtág, with whom she worked closely from 1991 to 1996, as well as by Isang Yun, Hans Werner Henze, Sofia Gubaidulina, Claudio Abbado (whom she assisted in 1995), Carlos Kleiber and Günter Wand.
Since 1991, she has founded and directed several ensembles for contemporary music,
including attacca berlin, the Echo Ensemble, the ensemble oktopus and the
opus21musikplus network. From 1999 to 2007, she headed the Department of New Music at
the Hanns Eisler Academy of Music in Berlin; since 2002, she has been a professor at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Munich.
Her clients include institutions such as the BBC, the Bavarian State Opera, the Berlin State Opera, the Venice Biennale, the Athens State Orchestra, the Lucerne Festival, the Grafenegg Festival, the Tonkünstler Orchestra, the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival, the Bach Choir Salzburg, the Camerata Salzburg, the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra and the DSO Berlin. She composes for internationally renowned soloists such as Anastasia Kobekina, Nils Mönkemeyer, François Leleux, Dorothee Oberlinger, Julian Prégardien, Mikael Rudolfsson, Elisabeth Plank, Danae and Kiveli Dörken, Cathy Krier and William Youn, as well as for numerous chamber ensembles, including the Minguet Quartet, the Auner Quartet, the Cuarteto Quiroga, the Munich Opera Horns, OPERcussion, the Feininger Trio and the Meitar Ensemble.
Her more than 30 discographic releases have been published by ECM, Sony Classical,
GENUIN and NEOS, among others. Several of her albums have been nominated for the
International Classical Music Awards and the German Record Critics' Award. In 2023, Konstantia Gourzi was awarded the Opus Klassik as Composer of the Year. Her album ‘Whispers’ has already reached more than 50 million listeners on social media, and this number continues to grow steadily.
In the 2025/2026 season, she will be Composer in Residence with the Bremen Philharmonic Orchestra. The Mainz Philharmonic State Orchestra will dedicate its 2026 composer portrait to her. In addition to numerous world premieres, she is also creating interdisciplinary concert and education formats that open up new avenues of musical communication.
Dr. Susanna Schulz, September 2025