Close

KarinaCanellakis

/
  • Conductor

About Karina

Chief Conductor: Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Principal Guest Conductor: London Philharmonic Orchestra

Karina’s 2024-25 guest engagements include debuts with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra as well as Staatskapelle Dresden (in their televised New Year’s Eve concert), along with return visits to the Munich Philharmonic, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony and Washington DC’s National Symphony Orchestra.

Karina returns to the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris to conduct Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites with Les Siècles in the pit.

Her engagements as Chief Conductor of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic include Mahler Symphony no. 3, Brahms Ein Deutsches Requiem and Elgar The Dream of Gerontius.

Her first recording with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic for Pentatone of Bartók’s Four Pieces and Concerto for Orchestra was nominated for a Grammy Award.

Since winning the Sir Georg Solti Conducting Award in 2016 Karina has become a guest conductor with leading orchestras around the world, including Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Philadelphia, LA and San Francisco as well as the Bavarian Radio, Orchestre de Paris, London Symphony, Vienna Symphony, Munich Philharmonic and Gewandhausorchester Leipzig. She recently finished a four-year appointment as Principal Guest Conductor of the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin and was Artist-in-Residence at the Musikverein Vienna in the 23-24 season.

Download programme biography   

Contact

For availability and general enquiries:

For contracts, logistics and press:

Fiona Russell

Fiona Russell

Senior Assistant Manager

Representation

European Management with Askonas Holt
General Management with Opus 3 Artists USA, Jonathan Brill

Season Highlights

Sep 2024
Isarphilharmonie Munchen
Beethoven: Egmont Op.84 Overture Shostakovich: Cello Concerto No. 1 in E flat Op.107 Beethoven: Symphony No. 5 in Cm Op.67 Pablo Ferrandez (cello) Munich Philharmonic
Oct 2024
Concertgebouw Amsterdam
Sibelius: Violin Concerto Wagner: Vorspiel und Liebestod; Tristan und Isolde Scriabin: Symphony No. 4 Le Poeme de l'Extase Augustin Hadelich (violin) Het Concertgebouworkest
Oct 2024
Royal Festival Hall London
Schumann: Manfred Overture Schumann: Cello Concerto Bruckner: Symphony no. 4 Truls Mørk (cello) London Philharmonic Orchestra
Dec 2024 - Dec 2024
Theatre de Champs Elysees Paris
Poulenc: Dialogues des Carmelites
Dec 2024
Staatskapelle Dresden
New Year's Eve concert of the Staatskapelle Dresden Fatma Said (soprano)
Feb 2025
Philharmonie Paris
Janacek: The Cunning Little Vixen - suite Tchaikovsky: Rococo Variations Op.33 Beethoven: Symphony No. 7 in A Op.92 Jean-Guihen Queyras (cello) Orchestre de Paris
Feb 2025
David Geffen Hall New York
Saariaho: Lumière et pesanteur Berg: Violin Concerto Messiaen: Les Offrandes Oubliées Debussy: La Mer Veronika Eberle (violin)
Mar 2025
Het Concertgebouw Amsterdam
Janacek: From the House of the Dead Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra
Apr 2025
Symphony Center Chicago
Sibelius: The Oceanides Dvorak: The Wild Dove Op.110 Rachmaninov: Symphonic Dances Op.45 Chicago Symphony Orchestra
May 2025
Herkulessaal Munich
Saariaho: Lumiere et pesanteur Ravel: Piano Concerto in G Sibelius: Lemminkäinen Suite Op.22 Alice Sara Ott (piano) Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks
Karina Canellakis, a white woman with long blonde loose hair wearing a black jacket
Karina Canellakis, a white woman with long blonde hair wearing a black suit looking directly at the camera
Karina Canellakis, a white woman with long blonde pinned up, looking over her shoulder at the camera
Karina Canellakis, white woman with long blonde hair pinned up, wearing black, looking down and smiling
Karina Canellakis, a white woman with blonde hair wearing a black jacket looking straight atht ecamera
Karina Canellakis, a white woman with blonde hair wearing a black jacket looking over her shoulder at the camera

News

Press

  • Bartok: Bluebeard's Castle

    Recording
    May 2025
    • Karina Canellakis conducts the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic as if her life depended on it, understanding the aching angularity of Bartok's score and exploring every musical shiver and chordal creak. Climaxes are perfectly places and there's an admirable attention to detail - the anxious ostinato for strings in the Prologue and the unsettling drum beat that heralds the opening of the Sixth Door. Chilling.

      • BBC Music Magazine
      • 15 May 2025
    • I love the attention to detail that Canellakis brings, her obvious relish of the vivid scoring. I was unsettled by the frenzied woodwind and percussion in the torture chamber, enraptured by the harp in the treasure room and transported to a suitably pastoral frame of mind by the beautifully combined flute and horn in the garden...Overall this is a compelling version of Bartok's dark masterpiece. It is not perfect, but it is hugely satisfying musically and dramatically.

  • New York Philharmonic

    David Geffen Hall, NY
    Feb 2025
    • Throughout the concert, she elicited playing of poise and patience, inspiring the ensemble to relax into phrases - which gave the music more organic energy than pressing relentlessly forward would have...her programme was ambitious, and it had unusual coherence, this was a sustained exploration of musical modernism...

    • ...a marvelous evening of intensely spiritual modern and post-modern music, lovingly shaped by the New York-born conductor, who was returning to the Philharmonic after a memorable debut...The orchestral sound shimmered and undulated like the aurora borealis...

  • London Philharmonic Orchestra, Bruckner Symphony no.4

    Royal Festival Hall London
    Oct 2024
    • There was no shortage of fire in Bruckner's Symphony No. 4 in which the glorious sounds of the LPO's brass players glowed like a golden sunrise...Canellakis was an unerring guide to a symphony filled with the sounds of the natural world, which here also felt like a spiritual journey through the forest, a place of solace, solitude and awe.

      • The Times
      • 31 October 2024
  • New York Philharmonic debut

    David Geffen Hall, New York
    Apr 2024
    • With the Philharmonic, Canellakis made an exciting and memorable debut, in a program that leaned heavily toward meditative, dreamy reflection. She began with an incisive reading of Webern’s Six Pieces for Orchestra, keeping her conducting elegantly restrained, even economized — gestures that befitted this sharply angled, brief set. Where the Webern was spare, the next piece, Strauss’s mystic “Death and Transfiguration,” was sumptuous, with Canellakis and the orchestra rendering phrases in richly hued colors and gentle curves. She harnessed the ensemble’s full power, riding over the heaving waves of sound with a muscular confidence.

  • London Philharmonic Orchestra, Shostakovich Symphony no. 8

    Royal Festival Hall, London
    Oct 2023
    • Canellakis made sure that this wartime symphony had trenchant power and a palpable sense of the overwhelming forces that crush individual freedoms.

  • Bartok Concerto for Orchestra

    recording
    Jun 2023
    • Canellakis projects the slow 'Preludio', 'Intermezzo' and 'Marcia Funebre' movements with full-blooded passion, securing a wonderfully warm string tone from her orchestra, and unleashes tremendous energy and ferocity in the 'Scherzo'... The great virtue of this performance, however, is that Canellakis places more emphasis on the work's shadowy and anguished resonances rather than focussing on its propensity towards extrovert virtuoso display.

    • Karina Canellakis (who wrote the detailed - and impassioned - booklet notes) clearly relates to the ethos of these pieces and the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra (impressively engineered by the Pentatone team) paint the soundscape with both finesse and fire.

      • Gramophone Magazine
      • 01 June 2023
  • Strauss: Ein Heldenleben

    Chicago Symphony Orchestra
    May 2022
    • Canellakis also sees to it that brief moments of tranquility seamlessly cede to moments of lush romanticism, to a thrilling, frenzied air of turmoil created by furiously bowed strings and powerful horns, to a sustained silence, and then to the almost dreamy sleep in the wake of a storm. The contrasting moods of peaceful, lyrical beauty and ferocious bursts of rage are impeccably captured from first note to last. Bravo to both this remarkable orchestra and an outstanding conductor.

  • Scriabin: Symphony no. 4, The Poem of Ecstasy

    Royal Festival Hall, London Philharmonic Orchestra
    Jan 2022
    • The chemistry of conductor and orchestra seemed well-nigh perfect: often Canellakis encompassed the sound, rounding her elbows and opening her arms, and the music flung itself into them. Canellakis achieved exactly the right balance between controlling the constellations in this luminous night sky of sound and maintaining a collegial presence, her players responding to her with gusto that was suitably ecstatic…Above all, the LPO has a real treasure in Canellakis

  • Tchaikovsky Symphony no. 4

    Roayl Festival Hall, London Philharmonic Orchestra
    Jan 2022
    • An urgent energy swept us through the slow movement, but with enough bloom to provide emotional release, Canellakis letting the bittersweet mood gradually dissolve like melted snow. There was a freshly minted quality to the puckish fast movement…There is explosive chemistry between this conductor and orchestra.

    • Throughout there was precision but not at the cost of tension, so that the feeling of release at the symphony’s final climax was overpowering. Canellakis and the LPO are an excellent team in the making.

  • Eugen Onegin

    Théâtre des Champs Élysées
    Nov 2021
    • Cette nouvelle production fait donc figure d'événement, d'autant qu'elle est d'une qualité exceptionnelle. La jeune chef américaine Karina Canellakis dirige, avec toutes les nuances indispensables pour entendre l'œuvre, l'Orchestre national de France

      • Le Figaro
      • 21 November 2021
    • De la fosse, la cheffe Karina Cannelakis fait monter la musique vibrante, enveloppante, enivrante de Tchaïkovsky. Elle tient notre très bel Orchestre National d’une main souple et forte... On sent qu’elle a son Tchaïkovksy à fleur de peau. Et le frisson passe dans la salle

      • Forumopera.com
      • 25 November 2021
    • la direction de Karina Canellakis est passionnelle à souhait, naviguant avec une évidente jubilation entre sombre fièvre, rythmes haletants et déroulé paisible des séquences mélancoliques – donnant à entendre, en tout cas, toutes les subtilités d’une partition riche de nuances.

      • Web Theatre
      • 21 November 2021
  • London Symphony Orchestra

    Barbican Centre
    Mar 2020
    • Karina Canellakis, making her conducting debut with the LSO, gave us beautifully fluent accounts of Strauss's 1946 Symphonic Fantasy on his 1919 opera Die Frau ohne Schatten and early tone poem Death and Transfiguration (1889), and of Ravel's Piano Concerto in G major and "choreographic poem" La valse.'

Karina Canellakis appointed Principal Guest Conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra

/06 April 2020

The London Philharmonic Orchestra has today announced the appointment of Karina Canellakis as its new Principal Guest Conductor from September 2020. Currently Chief Conductor of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic and Principal Guest Conductor of the Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Karina has firmly established herself as one of the most dynamic and exciting conductors around.

The American conductor made an immediate impact on the LPO players when she first conducted them in October 2018 in a concert of Sibelius, Dvořák and Bartók at London’s Royal Festival Hall. Timothy Walker, Chief Executive & Artistic Director of the LPO, says:

“There are very few conductors who instantly impress players by their command of a score, their insights and their intellectual rigour. Karina is one of those few, and everyone at the London Philharmonic Orchestra is thrilled that she will join us as our next Principal Guest Conductor. We look forward to many years of music-making with Karina.”

Karina is due to conduct four Royal Festival Hall concerts with the LPO in the 2020/21 season. Her first concert as Principal Guest Conductor is part of the LPO’s year-long 2020 Vision series, pairing Beethoven’s Symphony No. 8 with John Adams’ concerto for string quartet, Absolute Jest [3 Oct 2020]. The following day she conducts the orchestra in one of its FUNharmonics concerts. She returns to the RFH in April 2021 to conduct Komarov’s Fall by the LPO’s Composer in Residence, Brett Dean [14 April 2021], and a programme of Brahms and Beethoven with Stephen Hough [16 April 2021], which she will also take to Brighton the following day as part of the LPO’s residency at Brighton Dome.

She says of the appointment:

“I am honoured and excited to become the new Principal Guest Conductor of the LPO, an orchestra which both impressed me and captured my heart during our first rehearsals together. Together we are going to explore all kinds of different repertoire, looking through a fresh lens at the most beloved works of Beethoven and Brahms, plunging into the intense world of Shostakovich, as well as venturing into lesser known territory with works such as Brett Dean’s Komarov’s Fall. I cannot wait to see the members of the Orchestra again, to hear their virtuosic and soulful playing, and to make thrilling music together.”

Karina began her career as a violinist, graduating from the Curtis Institute of Music, performing frequently as soloist and chamber musician, and playing for two years in the Berlin Philharmonic as a member of their Orchester-Akademie. She then spent a number of years playing regularly in the Chicago Symphony and appearing as Guest Leader of various orchestras including the Bergen Philharmonic, before beginning to conduct professionally in 2013. She made her European conducting debut in 2015 and over the last few seasons has made hugely successful debuts with leading orchestras around the world that have resulted in instant re-invitations and lasting relationships.

See the LPO announcement on its website. 

Latest News

  • 13 June 2025

    Oscar Jockel debuts with the ORF Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien

    Read full article
  • 13 June 2025

    A trio of debuts at Opéra National de Lyon in Così fan tutte

    Read full article
  • 13 June 2025

    Peter Whelan, Hugh Cutting and Brandon Cedel debut at Garsington Opera

    Read full article
  • 11 June 2025

    Askonas Holt welcomes Bryan Wagorn

    Read full article
  • 10 June 2025

    Gevorg Hakobyan makes a role debut as Rangoni in Boris Godunov

    Read full article

This website uses cookies to enhance your experience. By using this website you agree to our Cookie Policy