Dimitris Kountouras

He specialises in early music and historical flutes. He studied the recorder, baroque flute and early music performance at the Utrecht School of the Arts (Master’s degree, 2001) with Heiko ter Schegget and Wilbert Hazelzet and with a scholarship from the Marco Fodella Foundation at the Music Academy of Milan under Daniele Bragetti and Μarcello Gatti. He continued his studies at the Vienna Conservatoire and the Trossingen School of Music with Kees Boeke (Master of Early Music). He holds a PhD in historical musicology from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and was a postdoctoral scholar at the Research Centre for the Humanities, Athens. He is the founder and artistic director of the Ex Silentio early music ensemble. He has collaborated with the Harmony of Nations Baroque Orchestra, Armonia Atenea and the Vienna Symphony Orchestra. He has performed in Europe, the Middle and Far East, in numerous festivals and concert halls. He has taken part in recordings for Talanton (Nell autunno di Bisanzio) and Carpe Diem (Mneme) with the Ex Silentio ensemble and in baroque opera productions for MDG and Decca. He is the author of the books Introduction to the Interpretation of Baroque Music (Orpheus) and Humanism and Music in the Italian Renaissance (Fagotto Books). He teaches at the Athens Conservatoire, the University of Macedonia and is a visiting professor at the Geneva Haute école de musique (Switzerland). He is a member of the artistic committee of the European program Emerging Plus Early Music in Abronay, France.