Biography
Patty (Paraskevi) Kontogianni was born in Greece and has lived in Germany since 1997. She studied music education at the Aristotle University in Thessaloniki and completed her cello studies at the local conservatory with Anatoli Krastev. She began her conducting studies with Karolos Trikolidis in Thessaloniki and continued with Professor Karl-Heinz Bloemeke at the Detmold University of Music in 2003 with a diploma in conducting.
She attended master classes with, among others, Sylvain Cambreling, David Zinman, Howart Griffith, Michael Dietrich.
At the international conducting competition A.Pedrotti she qualified for the final round, at the conducting competition of the “Bergische Symphoniker” she won the first prize and the scholarship place as an assistant of GMD Mrs. Romely Pfund.
In 2005 she took over the direction of the Voith Orchestra Heidenheim.
In 2012, the integrative new music project “wellen reisSen”, based on her idea and conducted by her, (composition by Jan Kopp) received an award of the Liz-Mohn-Foundation.
Guest conductorships have taken her, among others, to the Bergische Symphoniker, to Schloss Kapfenburg, the Jugendphilharmonie Hannover, the Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie Herford, the Municipal Orchestra of Larissa and the Theater Ulm.
In 2016, she began participating in the Ulm Festival of New Music at the Stadthaus Ulm, she conducted the ensemble “European Music Project” and the “Ensemble consord” with pieces by Iannis Xenakis, Claude Vivier, Brigitte Muntendorf, and Anna Thorvaldsdottir, among others.
In 2018, Patty Kontogianni took over the direction of the choir Levantate in Ulm. The pieces “Peacemakers” by K. Jenkins, “Dona Nobis Pacem” (excerpts) by R. V.
Williams, M. Haydn’s “Requiem” and the world premiere of Jan Kopp’s “Gehen” were performed under her conducting.
In 2019, she performed H. Zender’s Winterreise at the Ulm Theater.
Pedagogically, she has been active in the “Thuringian Autumn Course for Ensemble Conducting” since 2019.
Patty Kontogianni lives in Ulm with her husband and two children.