Christina Athinodorou’s oeuvre includes solo, chamber and symphonic/operatic compositions, as well as incidental dance music. Her works have been presented in festivals, concert series and venues, including the Biennale di Venezia 2011, MITO Settembre Musica Festival 2008, Salle Pleyel (Paris), Konzerthaus (Berlin), Italia Classic-Wave Florence 2007, Spaziomusica Cagliari 2008, Rebus Festival 2010, Teatro dal Verme Milano, Festival Forfest 2006 Czech Republic, Glazunov Hall Russia, Young Rising Artists’ Series 2008 Cyprus, Labyrinthmaker Project (tour in twelve countries), Viitasaari Musiikin Aika Festival 2008, New Music Festival PeriFÈRIA 2009 Finland, The Warehouse London, Manchester Waterside Arts Centre, the Reading and Dartington Halls (U.K.), Festival de Música Contemporánea Keroxen10 of Tenerife (Spain), Kanagawa Art Hall (Japan), DeFilharmonie Chamber Concert Series 2009 (Belgium) and elsewhere.
Christina’s music has been performed by the Orchestre National d’ Île-de-France, Saint Petersburg State Academic Symphony Orchestra, Jyväskylä Sinfonia Finlandia, St Albans Symphony Orchestra/City of London Sinfonia, Cyprus Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre National de Lorraine, Camerata Europaea, Pierrot Lunaire Ensemble Wien, Sentieri Selvaggi, Elias String Quartet, Ensemble Aleph, Moscow Contemporary Music Ensemble, Borealis Brass Ensemble, Endymion Ensemble with Stephen Gutman and Richard Benjafield, Okeanos, Duo Disecheis; the accordionists Stéphane Puc and Timo Kinnunen, pianist Lefki Karpodini, clarinettists Cristo Barrios and Mikko Raasakka, guitarist Nikos Zarkos, Paul Archibald, conductors Jean Deroyer, Alexander Titov and Paul Cosh. She has also collaborated with the choreographer Jamie Boylan for the work In Vein, for vocalist, chamber ensemble and six dancers, performed at the London Contemporary Dance School. Moreover, she has received commissions from the Guildhall School of Music (Ita Vivam, Opera in one act, 2003), Amici di Sentieri Selvaggi (Aktaí for six players, 2008), the Pharos Arts Foundation (Sterna, for clarinet quintet, 2010), Alda Dizdari (Aosmon for Solo Violin, 2007) and others.
As a conductor she has a keen interest in 20th century and contemporary music. She has worked with the London Sinfonietta, the Netherlands Symphony Orchestra, Orquestra Sinfónica do Porto, Jyväskylä Sinfonia Finlandia, IEMA Frankfurt with whom she has recorded for broadcast on the SWR, Aldworth Philharmonic Orchestra, St Albans Symphony Orchestra, the Crystal Ballet Decet and others. She has also appeared in concerts with the Southampton Wind Orchestra, the Guildhall Percussion Ensemble, the Royal Holloway Sinfonietta and other ensembles at the Notting Hill MayFest London and the Avaton Contemporary Music Festival (Cyprus).
Born in Cyprus, Christina Athinodorou studied in both the UK and France, having obtained BMus (Honours) and MMus in Composition degrees from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London (composition and conducting), and having spent a semester at the Conservatoire National Supèrieur de Musique et Danse de Lyon focusing on composition option instrumentale et vocale. She also holds a PhD in Composition from the Royal Holloway University of London. Among her teachers were Julian Philips, Michael Zev Gordon and Robert Pascal (composition), Alan Hazeldine (conducting); Olivier Caspar (orchestration); and Nikita Fitenko (piano).
Christina has also followed private composition studies with Philippe Leroux in Paris and she has been invited to participate actively in acclaimed workshops and masterclasses in Orchestral Conducting with Jorma Panula (2010) and with Mark Shanahan (Enschede 2012), in Ensemble Conducting with focus on contemporary repertoire with Pierre-André Valade (London, 2011), Zsolt Nagy and Peter Eötvös (Edenkoben, 2009) and in Composition with James Macmillan (Piccolo Teatro Milano 2005) and with Philippe Hurel at Centre Acanthes in Metz (2011).
She has received the Aristotle University Chamber Music Composition Award (Thessaloniki 2005), the Aldworth Philharmonic Orchestra Young Composers’ Award (U.K 2006-7) which led to three commissions and performances with the composer conducting, the Second ‘Premio GERMI’ (Rome 2009), the “Dame Felicity Lott” Award (given to a promising young musician in the field of performance/conducting) and various grants from the Solti Foundation, Royal Holloway (Research Scholarship), Cyprus Ministry of Culture and others. In 2012 she was a Finalist in the VI Composition Competition ‘Prokofiev’ in Russia, for her work Alma for Solo Viola and Orchestra. Recently she was awarded with the Prix du Jury and the Coup de Cœur du Public in the first edition of the composition competition Île de Créations of the Orchestre National d’ Île-de-France, for her orchestral work Intermède pour une mer jamais vue.
Christina lived in Paris during 2009-10 as a Resident Composer at the Cité des Arts. She was also Artist-in-Residence at the Centre d’Art Marnay-sur-Seine in France (April 2012).
Alongside her activities as a composer and conductor, she has taught in institutions such the RHUL and the London College of Music. She currently teaches at the School of Arts of the European University Cyprus.
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