As a conductor, composer and broadcaster, Boston native Steven Karidoyanes brings a wealth of musical experiences to the podium. Since 2004 Mr. Karidoyanes has led the New England Conservatory Youth Symphony in their regular concerts in Jordan Hall, concerts in Symphony Hall, and in past concert tours of Italy, Greece, Costa Rica, Eastern Europe, Ireland and Spain. He is also the conductor of the Plymouth Philharmonic Orchestra, a professional orchestra on Boston’s historic South Shore, since 1994. He became an understudy conductor for the Boston Pops Orchestra in 2008. He made his Boston Pops conducting debut in Symphony Hall in December 2016. Past international guest conducting engagements include Hungary's Savaria Symphony Orchestra in Hainburg, Austria, the Prague Symphony Chamber Orchestra, Costa Rica’s National Music Institute Youth Symphony, and return engagements with the North Czech Philharmonic. In January 2016 he conducted a series of concerts with the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra. Mr. Karidoyanes has also guest conducted the Syracuse Symphony, Rochester Philharmonic, and orchestras in the Washington, D.C. region. Opera productions conducted include Cape Cod Opera’s Carmen, The Mikado by the Bostonian Opera & Concert Ensemble [a.k.a. “The Bostonians”] and Opera-by-the-Bay’s (MA) Die Fledermaus.
For a decade Mr. Karidoyanes was Music Director of Boston’s Masterworks Chorale, conducting choral/orchestral masterworks in Harvard University’s Sanders Theatre. He has also held the posts of Music Director of the Boston College Symphony Orchestra, Associate Conductor of the Winston-Salem Symphony and Greensboro Symphony orchestras in North Carolina, and Assistant Conductor of the Rhode Island Philharmonic. He has served on the faculty of the Boston University Tanglewood Institute for ten seasons, and on the conducting faculty of the New England Conservatory.
Complementing his performing activities, Mr. Karidoyanes is a composer and member of ASCAP. His composition, Yerakína: Dionysian Dance for Orchestra, was written for and premiered by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, and has already been performed by the Boston Pops. His Café Neon: Fantasy on Greek Songs and Dances has been performed over forty times by two dozen orchestras coast to coast plus Italy, Greece and Australia. Also a classical music announcer/producer, Mr. Karidoyanes has worked for National Public Radio affiliates in Boston, North Carolina and Indiana.
Steven Karidoyanes holds a Bachelor of Music Degree from Boston University. He received training in orchestral conducting at the Canford School of Music in Dorset, England, where he studied with the renowned British conducting coach, George Hurst. Additional orchestral studies earned him the Outstanding Graduate Student Award for two consecutive years from Ball State University in Indiana.
Photo by Susan Wilson