Dr. Orestis Papaioannou
Composition/ Music Theory
Dr. Orestis Papaioannou (b. 1993) is a Greek composer and music researcher. He studied composition with Christos Samaras at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (integrated MA.Mus. in music with composition major) and with Dieter Mack at the Lübeck Academy of Music, (MA.Mus and Konzertexamen in composition). He concluded his doctoral studies in musicology and composition at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg. Part of his thesis, Between Speech and Song: Hybrid Voice in Twentieth-Century German Opera, was published by Cambridge University Press, while its artistic outcome, the opera The Fall of the House of Commons, was staged at the Greek National Opera.
His compositional practice is characterised by a strong engagement with text, concept-based approaches, hybrid vocal techniques, topographical thinking, and music ornaments and textures inspired by the folk music of north-western Greece.
He has won numerous international composition competitions, including First Prizes at the Krzysztof Penderecki International Composition Competition, the Via Nova Composition Competition in Weimar, and the Antonín Dvořák International Composition Competition in Prague. His music has been performed across Europe, the United States, and China, and he has collaborated with the Greek National Opera, Studio Musikfabrik, the Philharmonisches Orchester Kiel, and the Athens State Orchestra.
His research interests include notational and compositional approaches to vocal techniques between speech and song, early twentieth-century vocal recordings, the use of historical compositional styles in contemporary music, and the role of vocality in instrumental writing.
Orestis teaches composition, historical composition, and Western music history at SRH University Campus Berlin.