Pioneering many ‘firsts’ for females in her profession, Canellakis performs with the NRO in Breckenridge on July 31
One of the youngest and most successful female conductors to take up the baton, Karina Canellakis returns to Breckenridge this Wednesday to lead the National Repertory Orchestra through a gripping program featuring a selection of popular works by German composers Johannes Brahms and Richard Wagner. As if soaking up Brahms’ Symphony No. 3 or being taken away by Wagner’s “Forest Murmurs” and “Dawn and Siegfried’s Rhine Journey” weren’t enough of an allure to attend the performance, here’s just a few things to know about Maestra Canellakis.
Born and raised in New York City, she comes from a family of musicians.
Her father was a conductor and her mother a pianist. Both attended Julliard School.
Canellakis began studying violin when she was young and performed as a violinist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra.
She graduated from Curtis Institute in 2004 and went on to study conducting at Julliard from 2011 to 2013.
She received her first Grammy nomination this year for Best Orchestral Performance.
In 2018, she was the first woman to conduct the Nobel Prize Concert.
When she was named Chief Conductor of Radio Filharmonisch Orkest in The Netherlands in 2019, it marked the first time for a female conductor to become chief of any Dutch Orchestra.
The first female to become Principal Guest Conductor of The London Philharmonic Orchestra, Canellakis is also the first woman to conduct the BBC Symphony Orchestra’s famed BBC Proms First Night.
She has conducted orchestras all over the world and in 2016 won the prestigious Georg Solti Conducting Award.
Her “homecoming” debut conducting for the New York Philharmonic this spring was enthusiastically heralded as a Critic’s Pick in The New York Times.
Canellakis conducts Brahms and Wagner at 6 p.m. on July 31 at The Riverwalk Center in Breckenridge. Tickets start at $20 for adults and $5 for children.
PHOTO: by Eduardus Lee