George Petrou

Among the leading figures in Greece's early music movement, conductor George Petrou also directs performances of operetta and musical theater. He is the artistic director of the early music group Armonia Atenea. Petrou was born in Athens. He studied piano at Athens Conservatory and at the Royal Academy of Music in London. Petrou began his career as a pianist, performing in a piano duo with Christos Papageorgiou. After switching to conducting, he became interested in historical instruments and historical performance practices, although these were fairly rare in Greece when he began his career. He quickly found opportunities as an early music conductor, making his recording debut on the MDG label in 2004 with a performance of Handel's pastiche Oreste, leading the Camerata Stuttgart. He continued to record for MDG through the 2000s decade, also leading the Orchestra of Patras on some recordings. In 2011, he led Armonia Atenea (formerly the Athens Camerata) on an MDG recording of Handel's Alessandro Severo and composer Niccolo Chalichiopulo Manzaro (also known as Nikolas Mantzaros), and the following year, he became the ensemble's artistic director, continuing to hold that position as of the early 2020s. Petrou specializes in the music of Handel, Gluck, and other composers of the 18th century, but Armonia Atenea, under his direction, has played a range of music from the Baroque to the modern era, using both period and modern instruments. Petrou has also conducted traditional symphony orchestras, including the Munich Radio Orchestra, the Bratislava Philharmonic in Slovakia, and the Bern Symphony Orchestra in Switzerland. An unusual feature of his career is that he also conducts musical theater presentations, including those of Cole Porter's Kiss Me, Kate, Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story, and Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd, as well as the operetta The Godson, by Theofrastos Sakellarides. Petrou led Armonia Atenea and other groups in Baroque vocal recordings on the Decca label. He has also recorded for Deutsche Grammophon, Aparte, and, as of 2023, Parnassus Arts, where he led Armonia Ateneo in a recording of Nicola Porpora's opera Carlo il Calvo. In 2022, he became the artistic director of the Göttingen International Handel Festival. ~ James Manheim, Rovi