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Theodore
Antoniou, one of the most eminent and prolific contemporary artists, leads a
distinguished career as composer, conductor, and Professor of Composition at
Boston University. He studied violin, voice, and composition at the National
Conservatory in Athens, with further studies in conducting and composition at
the «Hochschule fuer Musik» in Munich, and the International Music Center in
Darmstadt. After holding teaching positions at Stanford University, the
University of Utah, and the Philadelphia Musical Academy, he became professor of
composition at Boston University in 1978.
As a conductor
Professor Antoniou has been engaged by several major orchestras and ensembles,
such as the Boston Symphony Orchestra Chamber Players, the Radio Orchestras of
Berlin and Paris, the Bavarian Radio Orchestra, the Tonhalle Orchestra (Zurich),
the National Opera of Greece, the State Orchestra of Athens, the State orchestra
of Northern Greece, the American Composers Orchestra, and the Berkshire Music
Center Orchestra. In 1974 he became Assistant Director of Contemporary
Activities at Tanglewood, a position he held until 1985. An ardent proponent of
new music, Professor Antoniou has founded various contemporary music ensembles,
including ALEA II at Stanford University; ALEA III, in residence at Boston
University; the Philadelphia New Music Group; and the Hellenic Group of
Contemporary Music. He is also director of the ALEA III International
Composition Competition, and since 1989 the President of the National Greek
Composers Association.
Many of
Professor Antoniou's compositions were commissioned by major orchestras around
the world, and more than a hundred and fifty of his works have been published by
Beraenreiter Verlag (Germany), G. Schirmer, and Gunmar Music (USA). He has
received many awards and prizes, including the National Endowment for the Arts
Fellowship grants and the Richard Strauss Prize, as well as commissions from the
Fromm, Guggenheim, and Koussevitzky Foundations, and from the city of Munich for
the 1972 Olympic Games. He has been recognized with ASCAP Awards for several
years, and in 1991 he was awarded the Metcalf Award for Excellence in Teaching
by Boston University. In December 1997 he was presented with the Music Award
from the Greek Academy of Arts and Letters, one of the most prestigious awards
and the highest academic distinction in music. On January 9, 2000, the Greek
National Radio Broadcast Corporation awarded him the Dimitri Mitropoulos Award
for his lifelong contribution to music.
Theodore Antoniou's works are numerous and
varied in nature, ranging from operas and choral works to chamber music,
from film and theater music to solo instrumental pieces - his scores for
theater and film music alone number more than a hundred and fifty
compositions. The opera Bacchae was given its first fully-staged production
for the Athens Festival in Greece. His newest opera, Oedipus at Colonus,
commissioned by the Sud-West Funk, Baden-Baden, in Germany, to be paired in
programs with Stravinsky's Oedipus Rex, was premiered in Athens on May 9,
1998; in August of the same year the work received the prestigious Music
Award presented annually by the Hellenic Union of Music and Theater Critics.
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