Nektaria Karantzi

Having made a remarkable impact around the world with her concerts and discography in Byzantine music, the Greek vocalist Nektaria Karantzi’s performances are purely devoted to Byzantine Chant, the Mediterranean primeval musical tradition, the religious music sung in Greek, Romanian, Arabic, Russian, Italian, French, Aramaic (the language of Jesus Christ) etc. She has been invited for Master Classes by some of the most renowned educational and musical centres in Europe, such as the Liszt Academy in Hungary, the Sorbonne University in France, the University of Oviedo in Spain etc.

She is the only Greek female performer of Byzantine music who started recording her discs at the young age of fourteen. Her active chanting work has started though five years before that moment, as a church chorister when she was only nine years old. During her first chants recordings, she accompanied a contemporary saint, Saint Porphyrios the Kapsokalyvite and, at his encouragement, she started her studies in Byzantine Music at a very early age.

Nektaria Karantzi is also well-known on Greek music stage through her collaboration with the greatest teacher of Greek Traditional Music, Chronis Aidonides. The important moment of her career is her collaboration with the internationally acclaimed pianist, composer and conductor, Vassilis Tsabropoulos. Their project was an artistic combination inspired by byzantine hymns joining West and East; they toured several times all around Europe.

She has collaborated with the great Hungarian traditional singer, Marta Sebestyen, the chanter Sister Kassiani, the acclaimed male choir of Budapest “St Ephraim Male Choir” under the direction of Tamas Bubno, the Swiss choir of orthodox chant “Choeur Yaroslavl” directed by Yan Greppin, the Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra of Athens directed by Vassilis Tsabropoulos, the National Symphony Orchestra of Skopje under the direction of Lê Phi Phi etc. She has also made the soundtrack for the spiritual Serbian film “Isceljenje” (The Healing) by Ivan Jovic.

Special moments in Nektaria Karantzi’s career were represented by her participating to the concert at the Theological School of Chalki (Constantinople) under the aegis and presence of His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, then to the concert celebrating 70 years of existence of the “Apostolic Diakonia” missionary institute of the Church of Greece, event hosted at the Athens Concert Hall, under the aegis and presence of the late Most Reverend Christodoulos, Archbishop of Athens and all of Greece, and also to the concert for the inauguration of the Athens Cathedral, organized under the aegis and presence of the Most Reverend Ieronymos II, Archbishop of Athens and all of Greece. She has also been involved in several television projects, such as the "Epikranthi" series about byzantine hymns, filmed for the Greek National TV in the Byzantine town of Mystras.

She is the founder and the Honorary President of the “Byzantine Female Chanters Association” and she is the President of the Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra of Athens, which is under the support of the Most Reverend Ieronymos II, Archbishop of Athens and all of Greece. She has been honoured for her activity by the Most Reverend Christodoulos, Archbishop of Athens and all of Greece, she has been awarded for her contribution to Byzantine Music by the Byzantine Chanters through the Hellenic Musicological Society – Institute for Byzantine and Greek Traditional Music Studies and the music magazine “To Psaltiri”. She has also been rewarded by the Byzantine Chanters of Rhodes island and the Cultural Association of Vatika. Nektaria Karantzi is an honorary member of "Morias" Cultural Association of the Peloponnesians of the Rhodes island.

Additionally, Nektaria has studied Law, undertook postgraduates studies in Penal Law, Criminology, Ecclesiastical Law and she is also a Doctor of Laws.