Karina Canellakis

Karina Canellakis has become one of the most sought-after conductors of her generation. The principal conductor of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra has been principal guest conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra since 2020 and principal guest conductor of the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin (RSB) since 2019.

In the 2021/2022 season she made her debut with the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the HR Symphony Orchestra and returned to the San Francisco Symphony, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic and Orchestre de Paris. In the summer of 2021, she made her debut with the Boston Symphony at Tanglewood and with the Cleveland Orchestra at the Blossom Festival. On the opera stage, she conducted a new production of Tchaikovsky’s “Eugene Onegin” at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris. With her Netherlands Radio Orchestra she gave a guest performance of Janáček’s “Kát’a Kabanová” at the Concertgebouw. She conducted the second act of Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde” at the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic and the third act of Wagner’s “Siegfried” with the Vienna Symphony at the Bregenz Festival. Previous operatic experience includes Mozart’s “Don Giovanni”, “The Magic Flute”, “Le Nozze di Figaro”, David Lang’s “The Loser” and Peter Maxwell Davies’ “The Hogboon”.

Since winning the Sir Georg Solti Conducting Award in 2016, Karina Canellakis has appeared with orchestras around the world, including London, Philadelphia, Hamburg, Montréal, Melbourne, Sydney, Toronto, Cincinnati, Minnesota and Detroit. She was the first woman to conduct the First Night of the BBC Proms in London with the BBC Symphony Orchestra in 2019. She was also the first woman to be entrusted with the Nobel Prize Concerto with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic in 2018.

Karina Canellakis began her career initially as a violinist and chamber musician until she was encouraged by Sir Simon Rattle to devote herself to conducting. For two years she had been a member of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra Academy. Born and raised in New York City, she can nevertheless draw on diverse family lines in various European countries.