Stamatia Karampini is a symphony and opera conductor. Born and raised in Greece, Karampini grew up in Crete and Thessaly. With 5, she started learning the piano, the cello and eventually voice and composition. She started conducting youth orchestras, ensembles and choirs at the early age of 13 and during her school vacations she would participate in International conducting Master Classes in Europe.
Karampini officially studied Orchestra and Opera conducting under Prof. Hermann Michael at Munich's Hochschule für Musik, where she graduated as youngest in her class with high honors, specializing in opera conducting. She went on to receive a Master's degree from the same institution. After two more years as a student of Prof. Jorma Panula at the Royal Academy of Music in Stockholm, she received the postgraduate Diploma in conducting, specializing in the music of the 19th and 20th century music. At age 19, Karampini won First Prize at the “Alexandra Triantis”conducting competition in Athens. She became a recipient of the Richard Wagner scholarship in Bayreuth. Since that time, she has won a variety of prizes at international conducting competitions such as the Nikolai Malko in 2005, and the Mitropoulos in 2006. As part of St. Petersburg's 300th anniversary celebrations in 2003, Karampini received an honorary degree from the Prokofiev Organization for her exceptional performances of Prokofiev with the St. Petersburg Philharmonic. In 2011 as a finalist, she won the "Prix du Public" at the International Competition in Besancon. Zubin Mehta has called her "one to watch". Hermann Michael referred to her as "possibly the most impressive conductor after Mitropoulos to emerge from Greece". In 2006, famous Italian author Quirino Principe wrote an essay dedicated to Karampini ( "...this young woman´s life is a rare example of artistic asceticism; leading a life entirely dedicated to music and marked by countless sacrifices...") When Karampini was 26, she received a personal invitation from Kurt Masur to share with him the podium at the Orchestre National de France. She rose up to the task with tremendous success. As the Altamusica review noted: “The young Greek conductor Stamatia Karampini performed Shostakovich´s 5th Symphony with an astonishing level of intensity and structure, exhibiting a profound knowledge of the work with a passion previously demonstrated by conductors of the caliber of Mravinski, Kondrachine, Ancerl, Sanderling, Bernstein and more recently, Haitink. From start to finish, she remained in complete control of the orchestra, wielding the baton with extraordinary precision - a phenomenal interpretation. The audience left the concert hall tonight with the impression that a new star had been born”. Stamatia Karampini garnered more public attention in 2011 after her memorable participation at the International competition in Besançon. The audience´s reaction was described in the press the next day as follows: " During the final performances the Greek candidate maintained her undeniable charisma, her unique gestures and a close intimate communication with the orchestra musicians. As the only one of the finalists to conduct by heart she gave the most personal interpretation of "Don Juan". She received the "Prix du Public". The audience exploded in applause, many of them standing, a reaction appropriate to a passionate interpretation and demonstration of a deep understanding of the musical material." In 2012, a 25-minute documentary about Karampini entitled “Young Conductors of Tomorrow” was broadcast by the cultural channel ARTE on French and German television. The same year she became a finalist at the Donatella Flick competition and stood in front of the London Symphony Orchestra conducting Debussy´s "La mer" and Prokofiev's suite to "Romeo and Juliette". In 2014 Karampini took charge of her own production of “Un Ballo in Maschera” at the State opera in Frankfurt. She also collaborated with the Komische Oper Berlin.In Ankara 2015, Karampini promoted programs including the restored version of Beethoven's 10th symphony to enthusiastic reviews. In June 2018, Stamatia Karampini made her debut with the newly founded Würth Philharmonic Orchestra and completed a tour of nine critically acclaimed concerts in the UK and Ireland, featuring legendary violinist and conductor Maxim Vengerov. During the 18/19 season Karampini conducted and taught at the US Jacobs School of Music . Karampini's recent and future guest engagements include conducting the Brussels Philharmonic, the Würth Philharmonic orchestra, the Barcelona Symphony orchestra, the Staatstheater Darmstadt and Frankfurt, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, the Düsseldorf Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra and Choir Giuseppe Verdi in Milan, the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, and the Orchestre National de France. In these and many other venues, she has proven her remarkable range, which extends from the German and Viennese Schools of Beethoven, Bruckner, Mahler, Brahms and Richard Strauss to Bartók, Liszt, Debussy, Sibelius, Ravel, Russian composers such as Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Scriabin and Shostakovich, and first time performances of contemporary music as well as a wide range of operatic repertoire. |