G. F. Handel. Alessandro.
Armonia Atenea Orchestra,
George Petru

Ms. Lezhneva’s international career skyrocketed when she created a sensation at the Classical Brit Awards at London’s Royal Albert Hall in 2010, singing Rossini’s Fra il padre at the invitation of Dame Kiri Te Kanawa. A decade later, she explores a broad repertoire with orchestras, conductors, festivals, operas and oratories. She made to great acclaim her debuts with Berliner Philharmoniker and at the Musikverein Wien, in October 2019 and December 2019, respectively. In 2020 season she returned to Mozartwoche Salzburg, this time with Sir András Schiff, as well as to the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées with a performance of Handel’s Alessandro with Kammerorchester Basel and Diego Fasolis.

Previous season, she gave her debuts with Wiener Philharmoniker, Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks and Wiener Symphoniker. The world’s top orchestras who invite Julia Lezhneva include the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Münchner Philharmoniker, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, Mariinsky Orchestra, Russian National Orchestra, Orquestra Nacional de España, Evgeny Svetlanov Orchestra, Seattle Symphony Orchestra and Seoul Philharmonic. She works regularly with very well-known conductors like Adam Fischer, Giovanni Antonini, Herbert Blomstedt, Paavo Järvi, Vladimir Jurowski, and Andrea Marcon. 

In 2019 she was “Artist in Residence” at Kissinger Sommer. She is a welcome guest at the Salzburg Festival, Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, Lucerne Festival, Dubrovnik Festival, Festival de la Vézère, Sion Festival, Nordland Musikfestukke Bodö to name a few. 

Ms. Lezhneva’s debut in Handel’s Alcina as Morgana at the Staatsoper Hamburg was widely celebrated in September 2018. She was immediately invited to return for Il barbiere di Siviglia (Rossini) and additional performances of Alcina. In 2021, she sings the role of Poppea in Händel’s new production of Agrippina (director: Barrie Kosky) – again at Staatsoper Hamburg. She appears in several other opera productions including Vivaldi’s Orlando Furioso (Angelica), Porpora’s Polifemo (Galatea), Germanico in Germania (Ersinda), Carlo il Calvo (Gildippe), Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro (Susanna, Barberina), Handel’s Tamerlano. 

In winter 2019 she had her debut in Bach’s Weihnachtsoratorium; the same season saw her in Händel’s Messiah and La Resurrezione, Vivaldi’s Juditha triumphans; spring 2019 she sang in Haydn’s Schöpfung and Mahler’s Symphony n° 4. Julia Lezhneva gives Lieder recitals, too, that brought her for example to Kissinger Sommer (2019) and to Vienna (2019); her repertoire includes Lieder from Russian, English and German composers. 

An exclusive Decca recording artist, Ms. Lezhneva released her latest solo album, Graun Arias, in 2017. Recorded with Concerto Köln, it won an OPUS Klassik in the following year. Other releases include Vivaldi Gloria with Franco Fagioli and Diego Fasolis (2018), Porpora Germanico in Germania with Max Emanuel Cencic (2018), Handel Arias with Il Giardino Armonico (2015), Ms. Lezhneva’s much acclaimed solo-debut Alleluia, also with Il Giardino Armonico (2014), and Pergolesi Stabat Mater with Philippe Jaroussky, Diego Fasolis, I Barocchisti and the Swiss Radio and TV Choir (2013). 

Born in 1989 in a family of geophysicists on Sakhalin Island off the Pacific Coast of Russia, Ms. Lezhneva began playing piano and singing at the age of five. She graduated from the Gretchaninov Music School and continued her vocal and piano studies at the Moscow Conservatory Academic Music College. At 17 she came to international attention as the winner of the Elena Obraztsova Opera Singers Competition, and was invited to share the stage with Juan Diego Flórez at the opening of the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro in the following year. In 2009, she won first prize at the Mirjam Helin International Singing Competition in Helsinki and the following year took first prize at the Paris International Opera Competition, as the youngest contestant in each competition’s history. 

Opernwelt magazine named her “Young Singer of the Year” in 2011 for her debut at La Monnaie in Brussels. The following year she performed at the Victoires de la Musique Classique in Paris. 

Julia Lezhneva’s teachers and mentors include Dennis O’Neill, Yvonne Kenny, Elena Obraztsova, Alberto Zedda, Richard Bonynge and Thomas Quasthoff.

Russian soprano Dilyara Idrisova was born in Ufa in Bashkortostan in 1989 and began her musical studies with Milyausha Murtazina in her home city before attending a course at the Moscow Conservatory, which she completed with distinction in 2014. She has also attended masterclasses with Deborah York in England, Max Emanuel Cencic in Austria and Ildar Abdrazakov and Julia Lezhneva in Russia. In 2016 she won the second grand prix and the audience prize at the International Singing Competition in Toulouse.

Since 2014 Dilyara Idrisova has been a member of the Bashkir State Opera and Ballet Theatre in Ufa. Her international career began at this time. In the course of the 2014/15 season she took part in a European tour of Handel’s Alessandro, singing Lisaura alongside Julia Lezhneva, Max Emanuel Cencic and Xavier Sabata with Armonia Atenea under George Petrou. Performances were given in the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall in Moscow, the Palais des Beaux-Arts (BOZAR) in Brussels and at the Handel Festival in Halle. Subsequent appearances included Arasse in Hasse’s Siroe in Kraków, Moscow, the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, the Opéra de Lausanne and the Hesse State Theatre in Wiesbaden, Sabina in Pergolesi’s Adriano in Siria at the Opéra Royal in Versailles and at the Theater an der Wien and Bach’s St Matthew Passion and St John Passion at the Philharmonie im Gasteig in Munich.

Recent highlights include Poppea in Handel’s Agrippina at the Opera Vlaanderen in Antwerp, Colloandra in Salieri’s La fiera di Venezia at the Schwetzingen Festival, Giuditta in Vinci’s Gismondo, re di Polonia at the Theater an der Wien, her debut at the Hamburg Elbphilharmonie in 2019 and CD recordings of Porpora’s Germanico in Germania and Handel’s Ottone. Following her Salzburg Whitsun Festival debut in Porpora’s Polifemo, Dilyara Idrisova appeared as Bellezza in Handel’s Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno at the Opéra national de Montpellier, as Giuditta in Moscow, Warsaw and at the Klangvokal Music Festival in Dortmund and as Evanco in Handel’s Rodrigo at the Theater an der Wien.

Max Emanuel Cencic is one of the most fascinating and versatile singing artists in the world today, and one dedicated to the revival and performance of the music of the 18th century.

Season 2020/21 included a new production of Dalbavie's Le Soulier de Satin (world premiere) at the Paris Opera; at the Bayreuth Baroque Opera Festival he sings the role of Lottario and directs the new production of Porpora’s Carlo il Calvo, the title role in Vinci's Gismondo re di Polonia, Carmina Burana in the Wiener Konzerthaus, Hasse's Cajo Fabrizio, Carlo il Calvo in concert at the Theater an der Wien and in the Amsterdam Concertgebouw. Once more, he takes on Rossini's La Donna del Lago at the Zagreb Opera and at the festival in Saarema, where he directs the opera and sings the challenging role of Malcolm.

With his remarkable mezzo-soprano voice, Max Emanuel Cencic demonstrates that Baroque singing can be both technically brilliant and at the same time modern and emotionally engaging. For over two decades he has been performing in first rank opera houses, including the Wiener Staatsoper, Theater an der Wien, the Opernhaus Zürich, the Opéra Royal de Versailles, the Bayerische Staatsoper, the Staatsoper Unter den Linden Berlin, Barcelona’s Gran Teatro del Liceu, the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Paris and Brussels’ La Monnaie.Concert engagements have taken him to the Laeiszhalle Hamburg, Carnegie Hall (New York), the Barbican Center (London), Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, the Wiener Musikverein and Wiener Konzerthaus, and the Tchaikovsky Hall in Moscow. 

In addition, he has sung at numerous festivals worldwide including the renowned Salzburger Festpiele. He regularly works with such conductors as William Christie, René Jacobs, Ottavio Dantone, Diego Fasolis, George Petrou, Emmanuelle Haïm and Riccardo Muti. His education as a singer began as a member of the Wiener Saengerknaben (Vienna Boys’ Choir), with a solo career as a soprano from 1992, and as a counter-tenor from 2001.On 21st September 2017, Max Emanuel Cencic celebrated the 35th anniversary of his first appearance on stage, with a performance of Orfeo in Gluck‘s Orfeo ed Euridice.

Max Emanuel Cencic entrances his audiences with his numerous projects, opera productions, CD recordings, and extensive tours. As Artistic Director of Parnassus Arts Productions he is responsible for the conception, supervision and performance of important works of the Italian Baroque, among them the sensational re-discovery of Leonardo Vinci’s last opera, Artaserse, and, more recently, Arminio. As in its premiere in 1730 in Rome, this new production, performed with an all-male cast (including five counter-tenors), was widely praised, both in its live performances and on disc. His inspired revival of Vinci’s opera Catone in Utica, with four counter-tenors in the cast, was equally successful, both on stage and as a CD recording. The CD Ottone with Max Emanuel Cencic in title role has been nominated for a Grammy.

His solo-recordings are every bit as riveting: with Venezia he charmed audiences and critics alike with highlights from Venetian opera, while the CD Rokoko contained a fascinating compilation of arias from the extended and virtually unknown opus of Johann Adolph Hasse. Max Emanuel Cencic’s most recent, critically acclaimed CD, Arie Napoletane, is dedicated to masterpieces of the Neapolitan school. His wide-ranging discography includes several world premiere recordings and has received a number of awards, among them the Diapason d’Or, the Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik, and Croatia’s Porin Prize. His discs have been Editor’s Choice in Gramophone magazine on several occasions. The French Ministry of Culture has made him a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. 

Max Emanuel Cencic has become in the meantime also an acknowledged director. His live production of Hasse’s Siroe toured all over Europe and was released on CD by Decca. At the Händel festival in Karlsruhe in 2016 and 2017, he undertook the double role of lead singer and director of Händel’s opera Armino and for 2019 and 2020 he will direct Händel’s Serse and sing Arsamene. His 2019 Salzburger Pfingstfestspiele production of the rarely played opera Polifemo (Porpora) at the Felsenreitschule, were he also sang the role of Ulisse, was highly critically acclaimed. New productions in the upcoming years are Rossini‘s Tancredi, Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte, Porpora’s Carlo il Calvo and Vinci’s Alessandro nell‘Indie.

Since september 2020, Max Emanuel Cencic has been Artistic Director of the Bayreuth Baroque Opera Festival. The first edition of the spectacular festival took place despite the corona crisis and was a huge success with the public and the press. 400,000 worldwide viewers followed the broadcasts online and all the performances in Bayreuth were sold out. Max Emanuel Cencic directed the new production of Carlo il Calvo where he also sang the role of Lottario. The production was awarded by the French magazine Forum Opera, best new opera production of the year 2020. In his first season as the artistic director, Max Emanuel Cencic invited world stars such as Joyce DiDonato, Franco Fagioli and Jordi Savall to Bayreuth. He also sang the title role in the concert version of the opera Gismondo re di Polonia by Vinci on the stage of the Margravial Opera House in Bayreuth. 

Season 2021/22 includes Porpora’s Carlo il Calvo and Polifemo in Bayreuth, Gismondo in Dortmund, Orlando Furioso in Paris and Orfeo ed Euridice in Berlin.

In the course of the 2011/12 season, countertenor Xavier Sabata – an exclusive Parnassus artist – performed in seven countries around Europe, appearing at 11 opera houses and at numerous festivals and renowned concert halls. He collaborated with nine top European orchestras, including the world-famous Orchestre des Arts Florissants, and took the stage at venues including the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris, the Opéra Royal de Versailles, Badische Staatstheater Karlsruhe, Vienna Konzerthaus, Teatro Villamarta Valladolid and the Barcelona Internacional Teatre.

Xavier Sabata was born in Avià in Catalonia and studied drama at Barcelona’s Institute for Theatre, but went on to pursue further artistic disciplines: saxophone at Barcelona Conservatory and singing and historical vocal practice at the Escola Superior de Musica Catalunya and at the conservatory of Karlsruhe, where his teachers were Hartmut Höll and MitsukoShirai. He also participated in masterclasses with Montserrat Figueras, Richard Leavit und Christoph Prégardien.

His continuing relationship William Christie and Les Arts Florissants began with his participation in a production of Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea in Lyon. This led to an invitation to appear in Les Arts Florissants’ spectacular and much-praised production of Landi’s Il Sant’Alessio and he also went on to sing Iarba in Cavalli’s La Didone under Christie’s direction.

Xavier Sabata appears regularly with other leading ensembles, including Europa Galante, Collegium 1704, Venice Baroque Orchestra, I Barocchisti, Al Ayre Español, El Concierto Español and Orquesta Barroca Sevilla, and colla- borates with conductors such as Fabio Biondi, René Jacobs, Jordi Savall, Alan Curtis, Gabriel Garrido, Fabio Bonizzoni, Diego Fasolis, Andrea Marcon, Xavier Dìaz Latorre, Ivor Bolton, George Petrou, Riccardo Minasi, Harry Bicket and Christopher Moulds.

He is a frequent guest at venues such as the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris, Bozar in Brussels, Madrid’s Teatro Real, the Liceu and Palau de la Música Catalan in Barcelona, La Fenice in Venice, the Krakow Opera (for the Opera Rara series), Opéra de Lausanne, Grand Théâtre in Geneva, Theater an der Wien in Vienna, Tchaikovsky Hall in Moscow, and at the leading halls in London and New York.

His festival appearances, meanwhile, have included the Innsbruck Festival für Alte Musik, with René Jacobs conducting, Aix-en-Provence (Dido and Aeneas and singing madrigals), Ambronay, Handel Festival Halle and the Festival Via Stellae in Santiago de Compostela.

Xavier Sabata’s recording projects in 2012/13 include two new operatic releases: Vivaldi’s L’Oracolo in Messenia (Virgin Classics/EMI), in which he sings the role of Anassandro, and Handel’s Alessandro (DECCA), in which he sings Tassile. He is also due to record two solo recitals: Milano, with the Ensemble Atalanta Fugiens, for Sony, and Bad Guys for the Aparté label. His catalogue already includes a number of recordings for labels such as Winter&Winter, Harmonia Mundi Iberica und Virgin Classics/EMI (including Gernando in Handels Faramondo).

The 2012/13 season will also see Xavier Sabata performing as an actor, appearing in plays and musical theatre with a number of renowned Spanish companies, including, in Barcelona, the Teatre Lliure and Teatre Nacional de Catalunya. He will also make appearances in several TV series.

On the operatic stage he will both appear in signature roles and make further important debuts. He will be Ottone in Handel’s Agrippina in Oviedo and Endimione (La Calisto), Unulfo (Polifemo) and Tassile (Alessandro) at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna. Tassile will also take him to Versailles, Athens, Halle (Handel Festival), Bucharest (Enescu Festival), the Salle Pleyel in Paris and the Concertgebouw Amsterdam. In Freiburg he will take the title role in Handel’s Rinaldo and participate in a new production of Calderón’s El Gran Teatro del mundo (The Great Theatre of the World).

His solo programme Bad Guys will be presented in Caen, Freiburg, Seville and Barcelona and he will again team up with Max Emanuel Cencic, Yuriy Mynenko and Franco Fagioli for The Gala Night of Countertenors, a programme that created a sensation in Potsdam, Versailles, Karlsruhe and Hamburg.

Vasily Khoroshev is one of the most perspective countertenors of today. Khoroshev was born in Russia in 1986. Since 2005 he has been studying at the Moscow state conservatory of P.I. Tchaikovsky, class of professor Peter Skusnichenko. The young singer has already won a large number of international musical competition awards, including the first prize at the III International competition Modern art and education.

Khoroshev’s debuted in October, 2006 as Cherubino in Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro (Bolshoi hall, Moscow). In summer 2010 he performed the part of the Spirit in the opera Dido and Aeneas under the direction of M. Gabriele Garido on the stage of the Lausanne Opera House. In autumn of the same year Vasily Khoroshev successfully performed the part of Arthemis in Hans Werner Henze’s Phaedra (The German opera to Rhine/Duisburg). The innovative staging of Henze’s opera came as part of the Neue Musik für eine Metropole Henze’s project (EU-Initiative Kulturhauptstadt Europas: RUHR.2010). Khoroshev’s touching interpretation of the Greek goddess was highly appreciated in the Opernglas magazine. “The soft countertenor of the 24-year-old Vasily Khoroshev provides the Artemis goddess a characteristic profile between sensual travesties, full of greatness and the quarreling mannish woman from the lowest class” (Opernglas 1/2011).

During the 2011/12 theatrical season Khoroshev performed the part of Cleone in the recording of Handel’s opera Alessandro (Decca Classics). Besides, he cooperated with the highly innovative company La Fura dels Baus and took part in a concert tour in their adaptation of Carmina Burana.

Vasily Khoroshev is also to perform the part of Cleone in the 2012-2013 season in theatrical and concert productions under the direction of George Petrou. There, Khoroshev will collaborate with the world famous opera stars such as Max Emanuel Cencic, Vivica Genaux, Julia Lezhneva, Xavier Sabata and Rosemarie Joshua. Moreover, performances with all the above mentioned celebrities will take place at Megaron (Athens), at the Théâtre de Versailles, at the Salle Pleyel and at the Theater of Vienna. In addition, his performances are also scheduled for Handel’s Festival (Halle) and the Festival of George Enesco (Bucharest).

Khoroshev is debute in the Frankfurt opera in the premier of Das Spiel von Seele und Körper (Rappresentazione di anima e di corpo). Composer Klaus Lang incorporated several new music additions into the text of the Frankfurt opera’s part of the late medieval mystery of Cavalieris and thus created a careful combination of the past and the present. Khoroshev will also master the Megabise part in the work Artaserse during the season 2012-13.

Besides, in the coming season Vasily Khoroshev will continue his successful cooperation with La Fura and will participate again in Carmina Burana. Several concerts in Istanbul are planned under the direction of Sascha Goetzel for autumn 2012, and in spring 2013 Pedro Hallfter will be conducting during Khoroshev’s performance of the part of the Swan.

Born in Seville (Spain), tenor Juan Sancho initially trained as a pianist before entering the Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya (Barcelona) to study voice in the Early Music department with Lambert Climent, also receiving tuition from Monsterrat Figueras. Later he studied with Raphaël Sikorski (Laboratoire de la Voix, Paris) and finally with Raúl Giménez (Barcelona).

Juan Sancho has worked with many great conducters such as Michel Corboz, William Christie, Gustav Leonhardt, Fabio Biondi, Jordi Savall, Diego Fasolis, Andrea Marcon, Alan Curtis, Richard Egarr etc. He has also sung with outstanding orchestras such as Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana, Orquesta Sinfónica de Euskadi, Real Philarmonia de Galicia etc.

He has been also invited by some of the most important european early music ensembles like Concerto Köln, The Academy of Ancient Music, Les Arts Florissants, Accademia Bizantina, Venice Baroque Orchestra, Orquesta barroca de Sevilla, Le Concert des Nations, Hésperion XXI, Europa Galante, Il complesso barocco etc.

He has appeared at some of the most emblematic theaters and opera houses around the world: Teatro alla Scala (Milan), Teatro Real (Madrid), La Fenice (Venice), Prague National Theater, Barbican Center (London), Palais des Beaux Arts (Brussels), Alte Oper (Frankfurt), Auditorio Nacional (Madrid), Palau de la Música (Valencia), Salle Pleyel (Paris), Opéra Comique (Paris), Cité de la Musique (Paris), Auditori (Barcelona), Opéra National du Rhin (Strasburg), Opéra National de Lorraine (Nancy), Lincoln Center (New York), Teatro de la Maestranza (Sevilla), Fundaçao Gulbenkian (Lisbon), Oper Köln, Kursaal (San Sebastián) etc. And also in some of Europe’s most important music festivals such as Festival d’Ambronay, Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Quincena Musical de San Sebastián, Festival de Granada, Antwerpen Early Music Festival.

His performances have been broadcasted by many TV channels MEZZO, Arte TV, France 3, and most of Europe’s classical radio stations: BBC,, Radio France, Radio Nacional de España, Klara (Belgium), Radio Televissione Svizzera Italiana, Radio Télévision Suisse etc. His DVD and CD recordings include Alessandro by Handel (DECCA), Monteverd’s trilogy under William Christie from Teatro Real (DYNAMICS and VIRGIN) and Virtù di strali d’Amore by Cavalli under Fabio Biondi (NAXOS). He has made his debut in several main roles from operas and oratorios by Rossini, Mozart, Vivaldi, Bach, Porpora, Monteverdi, Boccherini, Vinci and Handel. Among his forthcoming performances stands out Farnace by Vivaldi and Artaserse by Leonardo Vinci at Opéra Royal de Versailles with Concerto Köln, Un turco in Italia by Rossini at Festival d’Aixen-Provence under Marc Minkowski, Alessandro by Handel at Megaron (Athens), Halle Händel Festival, Opéra Royal de Versailles, Theater an der Wien, Salle Pleyel, Concertgebow Amsterdam and Festival Enescu (Bucarest), Johannes-Passion (evangelist) at Palau de la Música (Barcelona), Bach’s H-moll Messe at Liederhalle (Stuttgart), La princesse de Navarre at Teatro de la Maestranza (Seville) under Hervé Niquet, his reaparition at Palais de Beaux Arts (Brussels) under Skip Sempé etc.

He was awared with the special prize for Lied /Mélodie française interpretation at the 2010 International Singing Competition “Julián Gayarre” (Spain).

Pavel Kudinov was born in Dimitrovgrad and gratuated from Sobinov Conservatory in Russian Saratov. He had his debut in Europe as Ruslan in Glinka's Ruslan and Ludmilla at Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe, followed by engagements as Sarastro (Zauberflöte), Selim (Il turco in Italia), Colline (La Bohème) at the Wiener Volksoper, Koenig Heinrich (Lohengrin) at the sestival des Deux Mondes in Spoleto, Alidoro (La Cenerentola), Escamillo (Carmen) at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Duesseldorf as well as Sarastro (Zauberflöte) at Teatro Regio in Turin. He sang the role of Sarastro also at Moscow's Bolschoi Theatre, at the Oper Leipzig and Bonn and the part of Escamillio at the open air festival in St. Margarethen.

His enormously wide repertoire includes Heinrich in Richard Wagner’s Lohengrin, Mozart, Rossini, Bellini, Dvorak, Puccini, Liszt, Shostakovich, Schnittke, as well as all the bass roles by George Friederick Handel such as Leone in Tamerlano, Clito in Alessandro, Emireno in Ottone, and Segeste in Arminio. Pavel Kudinov contributed to the CD-recording of Tamerlano through Naive, and the multiple award winning discs Alessandro and Ottone (both published through Decca). Pavel sang Consalvo (Almirena) at the Hamburg State Opera, Gurnemanz (Parsifal) in the Festspielhaus Erl as part of the Tyrolean Festival Erl, the roles of Pagano (I Lombardi alla prima crociata), Zaccharia (Nabucco), and Silva (Ernani) at the Opera Festival Heidenheim, gold dealer (Cardillac) in Florence, Jean Procida (Les Vespres Sicilienne) at the Bonn Opera, the title role in Porpora’s Polifemo at the Salzburg Felsenreitschule as part of the Salzburg Whitsun Festival, and Heinrich (Lohengrin) at the Bonn Opera, at the Tyrolean Festival Erl, and at the Salzburg State Theater. 

Appearances in the 2021/22 season include his role debut as Philipp (Don Carlos) in Heidenheim, Astolfo in Vivaldi's Orlando Furioso at the Klangvokalfestival Dortmund and in the La Seine Musicale in Paris, Simon (Judas Maccabaeus) and the title role in Polifemo at the Bayreuth Baroque Opera Festival. Pavel Kudinov regularly works with conductors such as Teodor Currentzis, Marcus Bosch, Christophe Rousset, Paolo Carignani, Axel Kober, Christopher Moulds, Marc Minkowski, George Petrou, Gustav Kuhn, Will Humburg and Pedro Halffter.

Armonia Atenea, (former Athens Camerata) was founded in 1991 by the Friends of Music Society of Athens and is currently considered one of the most active and diverse European ensembles with an important presence in the international music scene. 

As resident at the Megaron, the Athens Concert Hall, since its foundation, and affiliated to the Onassis Cultural Centre, since 2011, AA has developed a multifaceted artistic identity. The Orchestra performs an extremely wide repertoire, both on period and modern instruments, presenting concerts, opera, music theatre and ballet productions. 

The artistic director of AA is the Echo Klassik winning conductor George Petrou. Former artistic directors include sir Neville Marriner, Christopher Warren-Green and Alexander Myrat.

Armonia Atenea is today a major ambassador of contemporary Greek culture, being the only Greek ensemble that performs regularly at the most significant European concert halls, theatres and festivals, such as the Musikverein and the Theater an der Wien in Vienna, the Salle Pleyel and the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris, the Opéra Royal de Versailles, the Bozar in Brussels, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall in Moscow, the Opèra de Monte-Carlo, the Palau de la Mùsica in Barcelona. Armonia Atenea is the first Greek Orchestra to appear at the prestigious BBC Proms, in 2014. 

In Athens, AA holds very successful concert cycles at Megaron and the Onassis Cultural Centre. Furthermore, it appears every year at the Athens Festival, presenting concerts and opera productions. 

The Orchestra has been recording for several of the world's leading record labels (DECCA, Sony Classical, MDG, ECM). For its most recent releases, AA has repeatedly received the most desirable international awards: Diapason d’ Or, Gramophone-Editor's Choice, BBC Music Magazine - Recording of the Month, CHOC - Classica, as well as the "Best Recording of the Year" award in the International Opera Awards 2013. Also, the viewers of MEZZO TV voted the opera Alessandro by Handel, as the best opera production of 2013. 

The Orchestra has collaborated with famous conductors and soloists such as Salvatore Accardo, Philippe Entremond, Martha Argerich, Karina Gauvin, Matthias Goerne, Vivica Genaux, Leonidas Kavakos, Stephen Bishop-Kovacevich, Julia Leszhneva, Radu Lupu, Misha Maiski, Yuri Bashmet, Sir Jehudi Menuhin, Joshua Bell, Fabio Biondi, John Williams, Mstislav Rostropovich, Arturo Sandoval, Max Emanuel Cencic, Heinrich Schiff, Thomas Hangelbrock and Christopher Hogwood. 

The activity of Armonia Atenea in the field of contemporary music is also remarkable: the Orchestra has premiered and recorded works of many contemporary composers (Antoniou, Karaindrou, Koumentakis, Couroupos, Kypourgos, Mantzaros, Marangopoulos, Mikroutsikos, Papadimitriou, Sicilianos, Hatzis, Hadjidakis, Kancheli, Koukos, Tavener) , many of which were composed especially for AA. 

The educational activities were always of great importance for AA. Since its foundation the Orchestra has presented many concerts and ground breaking educational programmes all over Greece. 

In 1996 the Orchestra was awarded the Music Prize of the Greek Critics Union for its artistic and educational work. 

Armonia Atenea is supported by the Hellenic Ministry of Culture.

Grammy nominee and Echo Klassik winner George Petrou, is one of the most distinguished conductors of his generation, with a remarkable international career. He has particular interest in music of the 18th and 19th c. and is currently considered as one of the world's leading Baroque specialists. However, his activity is very wide including music of the 20 c. as well as contemporary. 

George Petrou is the artistic director of the renowned Athens based orchestra "Armonia Atenea”, with which he tours and records extensively, performing both on period or modern instruments. Additionally, he has developed a vivid interest in staging opera and musical theater productions and has recently signed several successful productions.

He has been a regular guest of major opera houses including Oper Leipzig, Théâtre de Capitole in Toulouse, Opéra de Strasbourg, Opéra de Nice, Theater an der Wien, Opéra de Lausanne, Korea National Opera, Teatro Petrucelli, Teatro Verdi di Trieste, Théâtre Champs-Elysées, Opéra Royal de Versailles, Stockholm Royal Opera, Greek National Opera, etc. He has performed at major festivals including Salzburg Pfingsfestspiele, BBC Proms, Klara Festival in Brussels, Handel festivals in Halle and Karlsruhe, collaborating with renowned orchestras. 

George Petrou has been a very active recording artist, collaborating with major recording companies, including Deutsche Gramophone, DECCA, MDG receiving the highest distinctions from the international press. 

He was recently honored as an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music, London (ARAM) and was awarded the title of "Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres" from the French government.