Artists
The four members of the Osmosis Saxophone Quartet from Greece and Cyprus: Antonis Fotiadis, Christos Zenios, Theofilos Sotiriadis and Yiannis Miralis, will teach and guide all the participants who will be separated in groups according to their skill level.
Stella Arabatzoglou, distinguished Athenean saxophone teacher and soloist is invited to be the 2025 guest of Osmosis Saxophone Academy.
Constantinos Gkaripis will be in charged of the piano accompaniment through rehearsals and concerts.
Special guest 2025
Stella Arabatzoglou
Stella Arabatzoglou was born in Rethymnon / Greece in 1970, where she began her musical career in the Philharmonic Orchestra. She studied saxophone at the Conservatory Athenaeum with N. Ginos and T. Kerkezos, whose class she graduated with "Great Honors and First Prize". She also studied theory with H. Xanthoudakis and D. Diamantopoulos. She has attended master classes with J. Y. Fourmeau, D. Campbell and G. Mc Crystall, as well as seminars on expression poliartica and music of the twentieth century.
She has collaborated with the Orchestra d’Harmonie des Jeunes of the EU, the Orchestra of the Friends of Music "Camerata", the Youth Symphony Orchestra of Athens, the civic Symphony Orchestra of Athens, the Symphony Orchestra of the Greek Radio and the State Orchestra of Athens, under the direction of J. Cober, A. Balta, A. Myrat, V. Fidezi, P. Sergiou, D. Owens, L. Karytinos, W. Rousso, T. Brocks, etc
As a soloist, she has performed with the Tap Quintet, the Youth Symphony Orchestra of Athens, the String Orchestra of the Municipality of Athens, the Camerata of the Municipality of Cholargos, Leipzig, Rundfunk-Blasorchester, etc. She has been a member of the Quartet of Saxophones of Theodoros Kerkezos, the Quartet of Saxophones of Athens, the Modus Ensemble, the Orchestra's "Oasis" and the Big Band of the City of Athens. She has premiered works by soloists and chamber music of Greek contemporaries composers, many of them dedicated to her. She is currently professor of saxophone at the music conservatories Athenaeum and Kodály and St.Catherine’s.
She is the principal saxophonist of the Philharmonic Orchestra City of Athens. In 2004 she founded the Athenaeum Saxophone Quartet, of which she is the artistic director.
Pianist
Constantinos Gkaripis
Konstantinos Garipis is a pianist, conductor, composer and music theorist.
He studied piano, music theory and composition in Thessaloniki (Municipal Conservatory of Thessaloniki and Department of Music Science and Art, University of Macedonia respectively) and did his master's degree in Stuttgart, Germany (Higher Academy of Music and Performing Arts), with a scholarship from the association “Freunde der Musik” and the DAAD, as a music theorist with a focus on orchestration and conducting orchestral ensembles.
He has worked for many years as a tutor, teacher, vocal coach and performer both in the field of classical and modern music and has performed in individual recitals and concerts as a pianist, composer and conductor, in prestigious music halls ( Thessaloniki Concert Hall, Vafopouleio Cultural Center etc.) performing his music and others composers’ works, with the last example being the work Missa di Requiem, Pro Liberatione Hominis, a composition for soloists, choir and orchestra in collaboration with the composer Angeliki Balogianni, which he orchestrated it and conducted it.
He has been actively involved in the theater, composing music for 7 theater performances in Greece and Germany (Theatrical Workshop "Metamorfosis", Theatrical Workshop of the municipality of Kalamaria, Theatergruppe der Forum der Kulturen Stuttgart, Theatrical Group "The Path" of the municipality of Thermi), among which and the original musical "Kafenion i Hellas" written and directed by the most important Greek actor, director and teacher, Christos Papastergiou, of whom he was a close collaborator.
After his return from Germany, he worked as an assistant conductor in the "Lyric Theater Company" with the acclaimed lyric artists Filippos Modinos and Kassandra Dimopoulou. There he conducts and works as an assistant conductor in a number of famous works of the international operatic repertoire (among others Madama Butterfly, La Boheme, Idomeneo, Re di Creta, L'incoronazione di Poppea under his own direction and Tosca, Il Tabaro, Suor Angelica as assistant conductor).
His oeuvre includes, among others, choral works, orchestral compositions, works for solo piano and solo compositions for other instruments, chamber music, poetry set to music and music for the theater, while in the last year he has been actively involved in composition and contribution to the enrichment of the repertoire for rare and ancient instruments such as the ancient Greek lyre, for which he composed a large series of works. His work has been the subject of a project by students of the Department of Music Studies of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, in a corresponding course on young Greek composers.
