A new important award was established in Germany in 2011 to commemorate Carlos Kleiber, the world-famous German-Argentine classical conductor. The Carlos Kleiber Award is granted to young conductors and soloists in recognition of their contribution to the cultural stage of Munich and was won by a thirty-seven-year-old Greek conductor, Constantinos Carydis.
Constantinos Carydis lives and works in Munich. He has been conducting at the Gärtnerplatztheater in Munich since 1999. After studying piano at the Athens Conservatory, he completed his studies in conducting at the University of Munich’s School of Music and Performing Arts. He has collaborated with major orchestras like the Royal Opera House of Covent Garden , the Florence Musical May Orchestra , the Orchestra of the National Academy of St Cecilia in Rome, the Vienna and Stuttgart State Operas, the Berlin Symphony Orchestra and the Munich Philharmonic. He made his debut at the National Opera of Greece a few years ago in The Tales of Hoffmann by Jacques Offenbach followed by Manuel Salinas by Periklis Koukos and La Bohème by Giacomo Puccini. At the 2008 Athens Festival, he conducted the Lyon Opera in Benjamin Britten’s opera A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and at the 2010 festival, he conducted the Mahler Chamber Orchestra.
