Leadership & Administration
Meet the people who play a critical role at MHC, supporting its reputation for excellence.
Kostis Gaitanos
(1934 - 2025)
Founder and Chairman of the Examination Committees.
Pianist, Musicologist, and Teacher
First Prize Winner of the 1963 International Piano Competition in Salzburg, the late Kostis Gaitanos was an acclaimed pianist, musicologist, teacher, and distinguished figure in Greek musical life. Throughout his extensive career, he performed internationally both in recital and as a soloist with symphony orchestras across a wide range of European, African, and Asian countries, including Lebanon, Israel, India, Singapore, Thailand, Bangladesh, and Japan.
Through these appearances, Gaitanos introduced international audiences to numerous works by Greek composers, giving the first performances of many of their compositions. Among the highlights of his concert career were his notable interpretations of Shostakovich’s Second Piano Concerto and Sergei Prokofiev’s First Piano Concerto.
Alongside his distinguished career as a performer, Gaitanos made an enduring contribution to musical and cultural life as an administrator, musicologist, educator, and author. From 1987 to 1990, he served as Vice-President of the Board of the Greek National Opera and, for two years during the same period, as the company’s Chief Executive Officer.
A highly respected musicologist, Gaitanos presented numerous studies through lectures, radio programs, and seminars. His research and teaching encompassed a remarkably broad range of subjects, including Ancient Greek Music; the evolution of the piano from the 16th century to the modern era; Mozart’s 27 Piano Concertos; Beethoven’s Nine Symphonies and 32 Piano Sonatas; the Lieder of Schubert, Schumann, and Brahms; the Études of Chopin and Liszt; and the history of opera during the Classical and Romantic periods. Among his most ambitious scholarly projects was “The Greek Musical Phenomenon,” an extensive study tracing Greek music from antiquity to the modern era.
His published works constitute another important part of his legacy. They include His Majesty the Piano (Typothito Publishing, 2004); Nine Symphonies, featuring musicological, aesthetic, and historical commentary together with morphological analyses of Beethoven’s Nine Symphonies (Nakas Publishing, 2006); Musica Enchiriadis, a music textbook intended for students, teachers, and music lovers (Nakas Publishing, 2007); the two-volume The History of Greek Music (Nakas Publishing, 2011); and As I Met and Lived (Stratis Publications, 2013).
Teaching occupied a central place in Gaitanos’ life and career. From 1968 to 1998, he taught at the Hellenic Conservatory, where he also served as Director of Studies from 1980 to 1998. In September 1999, together with pianist and professor Betty Barzouka, he founded the Musical Horizons Conservatory – Educational, Cultural and Artistic Center in Athens. Recognized by the Greek Ministry of Culture, the Conservatory went on to become one of Greece’s significant institutions for musical education, carrying forward the educational ideals to which Gaitanos devoted much of his life.
Gaitanos also served on state committees and on the juries of renowned international piano competitions, receiving numerous distinctions and honors in Greece and abroad. In December 2007, the Academy of Athens presented him with its Music Award in recognition of his many years of invaluable contribution to Greek musical life.
Born in Athens, Greece, Kostis Gaitanos studied at the Hellenic Conservatory with Alex Thurneissen before continuing his studies in Germany, Austria, and Portugal on a scholarship from the Gulbenkian Foundation. Among his distinguished teachers were Eric von Tenberg, Karl Engel, Maurice Eisenberg, and Sándor Végh.
Through his work as a pianist, scholar, author, educator, and cultural leader, Kostis Gaitanos left a lasting legacy in Greek musical life. His contribution extended far beyond the concert stage, encompassing musical education, scholarship, cultural administration, and the promotion and preservation of Greece’s musical heritage.
Betty
Barzouka-Gaitanou
Artistic Director and Piano Teacher
Acclaimed pianist and piano teacher Betty Gaitanou-Barzouka has performed in numerous concerts as a recitalist, soloist with orchestras, and with chamber music ensembles.
In addition to the more traditional piano repertoire, Ms. Gaitanou-Barzouka has a special interest in the modern piano repertoire, and for many years, has organized concerts with the aim of highlighting and promoting contemporary Greek works. She has recorded works by Greek composers on radio and television; premiered many works in concerts produced by the Union of Greek Composers; and collaborated regularly with the Cyprus Radio Foundation.
A renowned piano teacher in Greece for the last 35 years, Ms. Gaitanou-Barzouka has offered her knowledge and experience to a number of gifted young pianists, many of whom have distinguished themselves in the international concert arena. She is also the Founder of the piano ensemble Pianorizons. Composed of 10 graduate students and renowned musicians, Pianorizons specializes in the modern piano repertoire, and contemporary Greek composers have written works specifically for their ensemble.
A native of Athens, Greece, Ms. Gaitanou-Barzouka took her first piano lessons from her mother, and her musical gifts were evident from a very young age. She graduated with a diploma as a piano soloist, First Prize and Distinction, under the tutelage of Kostis Gaitanos from the Hellenic Conservatory of Athens. She then continued her studies with Maria Curcio and Karl Engel and participated in seminars of prominent artists including Leon Fleisher, Nikolai Petrof, and Paul Badura-Skoda. In addition to her piano studies, Ms. Gaitanou-Barzouka studied advanced theory and composition with Ouranias and Stamatis Ioannidis, Giannis A. Papaioannou, and Giannis Ioannidis.
Krystalia
Gaitanou
Head of Educational Programming and Communication
Violist
Born in Athens, Greece to musician parents, violist Krystalia Gaitanou has collaborated with and performed under the direction of world-renowned artists including Kurt Masur, James Levine, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Leonard Slatkin, Philippe Entremont, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Pinchas Zukerman and Philippe Auguin.
A member of the Greek National Opera Orchestra, Ms. Gaitanou has performed with the Athens State Orchestra, the Orchestra of Colours, the National Symphony Orchestra of ERT, and important symphony orchestras internationally including the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, the Santo Domingo Festival Symphony Orchestra, the Kurt Masur Seminar Orchestra, the Manhattan School of Music Chamber Sinfonia, the Manhattan School of Music Symphony Orchestra, the European Union Youth Orchestra, the Mediterranean Youth Orchestra, and the World Youth Symphony Orchestra. Since 2008, she has been a regular guest of pianist and conductor Philippe Entremont at the Santo Domingo Music Festival.
In the summer of 2009, Ms. Gaitanou was selected to participate in the Tanglewood Music Festival under the direction of James Levine, and in that same year, presented the first national performance of works for viola by the award-winning Greek-American composer George Tsontakis at the Athens Festival. Passionate about chamber music, Ms. Gaitanou has participated in international viola and chamber music seminars with Hartmut Rhode in France, Wilfried Strehle at the Mozarteum Summer Academy in Salzburg, and Michael Ouzounian, Craig Mumm, and Steven Dann in New York City. As a soloist, Ms. Gaitanou has performed Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante with the Broadway Bach Ensemble in New York; music by Robert Schumann at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in London; and works with the Athens State Orchestra String Ensemble and the Athens Municipal Symphony Orchestra.
Ms. Gaitanou studied violin, viola, and advanced music theory at The Musical Horizons Conservatory, receiving degrees in Viola and Harmony and a Diploma in Viola with distinction, First Prize, and a Gold Medal. She is also a graduate of the Department of Music Studies at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. In 2003, as a scholarship recipient of the Athens Concert Hall (bequest of Alexandra Trianti), Ms. Gaitanou studied viola in Paris, at the C.N.R de Rueil-Malmaison with Vincent Aucante and at the C.N.R de Boulogne-Billiancourt in Paris with Isabelle Lequien, obtaining, respectively, the Diplome Superieur and the Diplome de Perfectionnement. In 2007, with scholarships from the Alexander S. Onassis Foundation, the State Scholarship Foundation, and the Manhattan School of Music (Helen Whitaker Scholarship), Ms. Gaitanou continued her studies at the Manhattan School of Music in New York City under the tutelage of renowned violinist Karen Dreyfus, obtaining a Master of Music Degree and a Professional Studies Degree in Viola via the university’s distinguished Orchestral Studies program under the direction of Glenn Dicterow, concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic.
Ms. Gaitanou plays on a viola crafted in 1936 by John Wilkinson.