Athens Conservatory

The Athens Conservatoire (Greek: Ωδείο Αθηνών) is the oldest conservatory in modern Greece. It was founded in 1871 by the Athens Music and Drama Society. Initially, the musical instruments that were taught there were limited to the violin and the flute, representative of the ancient Greek Apollonian and Dionysian aesthetic principles. Significantly, piano lessons were not included in the program. In 1881 its new German-taught director Georgios Nazos, in a controversial at that time move, expanded the conservatory's program by introducing Western European-style instruments and theory material.

Among the musicians who taught at the Athens Consevatory are Manolis Kalomiris and Elvira de Hidalgo. Notables who were taught at Athens Consevatory include Spyros Samaras (1875–1882), Maria Callas (1938), Dimitris Mitropoulos (1919), Gina Bachauer, Nana Mouskouri and Mikis Theodorakis. Its current artistic director is Aris Garoufalis.

See also

• National Conservatory
• Hellenic Conservatory

A portion of content for this article is credited to Wikipedia. Content under GNU Free Documentation License(GFDL)