August 16, 2025
Karina opens new season with festival highlights in Edinburgh, Lucerne and Berlin
Karina Canellakis begins her 2025/26 season with three major festival appearances in August. She returns to the Edinburgh International Festival (21 August) with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and Edinburgh Festival Chorus in a program featuring Messiaen’s Les Offrandes oubliées, Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms with countertenor Hugh Cutting, and Stravinsky’s Petrushka.
On 27 August she makes her debut at the Lucerne Festival, leading the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir with soprano Liv Redpath and pianist Bertrand Chamayou in a wide-ranging program: Boulez’ Le Soleil des eaux, Unsuk Chin’s Piano Concerto, the world premiere of Robin de Raaff’s L’Azur, and Boulez’ Don from Pli selon pli.
The month closes with an appearance at Musikfest Berlin (31 August), where she conducts the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic and Choir at the Philharmonie in celebration of Pierre Boulez’ centenary year. Alongside Messiaen and Boulez, the program features the German premiere of de Raaff’s L’Azur and Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dances.
With these performances, Canellakis opens her season at three of Europe’s most prestigious festivals.
July 25, 2025
Season Highlights 2025-26
The upcoming 2025-26 season marks Karina's highly anticipated debut with the Vienna Philharmonic at Mozartwoche Salzburg in January 2026, as well as with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande in Geneva. She returns to leading orchestras including the Chicago and San Francisco Symphonies, the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, and the Vienna Symphony, and embarks on a European tour with the London Philharmonic and Anne-Sophie Mutter.
In opera, she makes her debut at Staatsoper Hamburg conducting a bold triptych: Schumann’s "Frauenliebe und -leben", Bartók’s "Bluebeard’s Castle", and Zemlinsky’s "A Florentine Tragedy". She also leads Britten’s Peter Grimes in concert with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic in Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw.
July 03, 2025
Karina Canellakis makes Japanese conducting debut
Karina Canellakis will make her Japanese conducting debut this July, leading five concerts in Tokyo, Sapporo, and Tomakomai with the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra and the Pacific Music Festival Orchestra.
On July 4 and 5, she will conduct the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra at Suntory Hall, featuring Ravel’s Piano Concerto with soloist Alice Sara Ott, followed by Mahler’s Symphony No. 1.
At the Pacific Music Festival, she leads three performances with the Pacific Music Festival Orchestra. On July 9 in Sapporo, the program includes Bernstein’s Overture to Candide and Schumann’s rarely performed Konzertstück for Four Horns, featuring soloists Stephan Dohr, Sarah Willis, Andrew Bain, and Nobuaki Fukukawa. On July 12 in Tomakomai and July 13 in Sapporo, she is joined by violinist Karen Gomyo for Sibelius’s Violin Concerto, followed again by Mahler’s First Symphony.
These concerts mark Canellakis’s first performances in Japan, presenting a program that balances well-known masterpieces with rare repertoire such as Schumann’s Konzertstück for Four Horns.
May 01, 2025
Karina Canellakis conducts the BRSO
On May 1 and 2, 2025, Karina Canellakis returns to the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra for two concerts at Munich’s Herkulessaal.
The evening begins with Saariaho’s "Lumière et pesanteur", followed by Ravel’s vibrant Piano Concerto in G major, performed by Alice Sara Ott. After the intermission, Canellakis leads Sibelius’s rarely heard Lemminkäinen Suite — a four-movement tone poem based on stories from the Finnish national epic, the Kalevala.
April 03, 2025
New Release: “Duke Bluebeard’s Castle” Available Now
The Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra and its chief conductor Karina Canellakis continue their Bartók journey with the composer’s only opera, Duke Bluebeard’s Castle, starring mezzo-soprano Rinat Shaham (Judith) and bass- baritone Gábor Bretz (Bluebeard). One man, one woman, and a dark castle with seven mysterious doors are all it takes to create a psychological thriller full of suspense and intense emotion. Karina Canellakis and the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra received a Grammy nomination for their recording of Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra and 4 Orchestral Pieces, which BBC Music Magazine praised as “enticing and brilliantly engineered”, while Gramophone lauded how orchestra and conductor “paint the soundscapes with both finesse and fire.” For Canellakis, Bartók’s opera recorded here is “an homage to life itself, to life’.
April 03, 2025
Karina Canellakis Extends Tenure with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra through to August 2031
The Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra and its chief conductor, Karina Canellakis, are delighted to announce the continuation of their successful collaboration. Canellakis, who has held the position since September 2019, will remain with the orchestra, reaffirming the strength of their artistic partnership.
Under her baton, the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra has delivered a series of remarkable performances at the AVROTROS Vrijdagconcert and the NTR ZaterdagMatinee. Highlights include the Dutch premiere of Jörg Widmann’s Arche, a full cycle of Leoš Janáček’s operas, In Unison by Joey Roukens with pianists Lucas and Arthur Jussen, and numerous Dutch and world premieres.
The news of Canellakis’ contract extension coincides with the release of Bartók: Duke Bluebeard’s Castle, the orchestra’s latest album. The recording showcases the deep musical connection between conductor and orchestra, reaffirming their shared mastery of modern and expressionist repertoire. Their previous album—Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra and Four Orchestral Pieces —earned a GRAMMY nomination in 2024.
Since her appointment, Canellakis has distinguished herself with her energetic, expressive, and precise conducting style. Her artistic vision aligns seamlessly with the versatility and adaptability that define the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, especially in its collaborations with the Netherlands Radio Choir. With a passion for new music, grand symphonic works, and vocal repertoire, she continues to captivate audiences both in the Netherlands and internationally.
The Dutch press has been unanimous in its praise. Trouw hailed her performances as “an unparalleled five-star experience,” while de Volkskrant lauded her “subtle balance between power and finesse.” NRC described her interpretation of Mahler’s First Symphony with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra as “thrilling in its crescendos and compelling in its timing, resulting in an overwhelming musical experience.”
Canellakis herself is thrilled to continue her work with the orchestra: “I am incredibly proud of how beautifully this orchestra plays and excited about the way we continue to deepen our musical journey with passion and dedication. There are some thrilling projects on the horizon, and I look forward to the next chapter of this wonderful collaboration.”
Simone Meijer, director of the Stichting Omroep Muziek, echoed this enthusiasm: “We are delighted to continue this successful partnership. Canellakis is a conductor who embraces artistic adventure, making her a perfect match for our ambition—to bring world-class live music to everyone.”
March 18, 2025
Karina Canellakis conducts Janáček’s from a House of the Dead at Concertgebouw
On March 22, Karina Canellakis conducts the Radio Filharmonisch Orkest in Leoš Janáček’s final opera, From a House of the Dead, at The Royal Concertgebouw Amsterdam. This performance marks the conclusion of her multi-year Janáček opera cycle, following The Cunning Little Vixen, Kat'a Kabanova, and The Makropulos Affair.
Janáček’s score shifts between jagged rhythmic energy and poignant lyricism, with unsettling percussion—including the sound of prisoners' chains—contrasting moments of unexpected beauty. The opera, left incomplete at the composer’s death in 1928, remains one of his most intense and gripping works.
This concert is part of the NTR ZaterdagMatinee series and will be broadcast live on NPO Klassiek.
February 24, 2025
Highly Praised Return to the New York Philharmonic
Karina Canellakis returned to the New York Philharmonic for three concerts in February. The program featured Saariaho "Lumière et pesanteur", Berg Violin Concerto with soloist Veronika Eberle, Messiaen "Les Offrandes oubliées" and Debussy "La Mer".
Zachary Woolfe writes about the first night's concert in the New York Times:
"The players didn’t seem like they wanted these moments to end as soon as possible; they reveled in them. That attests, of course, to the musicians themselves — and, perhaps, to their continued acclimation to the renovated Geffen Hall, in which even the most fragile sounds register clearly.
But it also speaks to Canellakis’s leadership on the podium. Throughout the concert, she elicited playing of poise and patience, inspiring the ensemble to relax into phrases — which gave the music more organic energy than pressing relentlessly forward would have.
For all the bits of breathtaking stillness in the performance, there were also forceful climaxes, but Canellakis arrived at them with naturalness. At the end of the first section of “La Mer,” the volume swiftly swells from pianissimo to fortissimo. While some performances land flat on the loudness, she drew out the speed ever so slightly, making the rise in dynamics feel like a thrilling wave rather than an abrupt boom."
Photo: Chris Lee
December 18, 2024
Karina conducts the televised New Year’s Eve Concert of Staatskapelle Dresden
Karina Canellakis will conduct the Staatskapelle Dresden in their annual New Year's Eve concert at the Semperoper on December 29 and 30, 2024. The program will feature pieces by Leonard Bernstein, George Gershwin, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Max Steiner, and Cole Porter. Karina will be joined on stage by soloists Fatma Said (soprano), Jonah Hoskins (tenor), and pianist Kirill Gerstein.
The concert will be broadcast German wide on ZDF, starting at 10:15 PM on December 29, 2024
Photo: Semperoper Dresden/Klaus Gigga
December 11, 2024
Karina’s NY Phil debut included in New York Times’ “Best Classical Performances of 2024”
Karina's debut performance with the New York Philharmonic this past April has been named one of the New York Times' "Best Classical Performances of 2024." The review praised her for leading "delicate Webern and indelicate Scriabin alike with mastery." The article also highlights her concert at the Wiener Musikverein with the Vienna Symphony.
Photo: Erin Baiano