Dimitris Kountouras specializes on early recorders and flutes and in the interpretation and history of music until the 18th century.

Dimitris Kountouras

Born in Thessaloniki, Greece, he began his musical training on the recorder and flute with G. Gourdier and I. Macovei. He studied recorder, traverso and Early Music at the Utrecht School of the Arts, in the Netherlands, with H. ter Schegget and W. Hazelzet graduating with a Second Phase performer’s diploma. On a Marco Fodella Scholarship he continued his studies on historical flutes at the Early Music Institute in Milan under M. Gatti and D. Bragetti. Furthermore he concluded his studies on the traverso at the Conservatoire of Vienna and he got a Masters on Medieval Music from the Musikhochschule of Trossingen studying under K. Boeke. He got a PhD on historical musicology from the Athens University and was a post-doc scholar for the Centre of Humanistic Studies (2016) for his original research project “Music and poetry of the Troubadours at the Latin Kingdom of Thessalonica after 1204”.

Research and artistic fields

  • Historical flutes and recorders, as well as other rare instruments of the flute family such as the dvoyanka (Bulgarian double flute), the medieval traverso and the gemshorns
  • Troubadours and the crusades
  • Humanism and the Italian Renaissance
  • Medieval and renaissance music iconography 
  • Performance practice and sources up to the 18th c.

Collaborations and concert activity

Dimitris is the founder and the artistic director of the ensemble Ex Silentio – exsilentio.org
performing and recording extensively since 2001.
He has worked together with Armonia Atenea, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra and the Harmony of Nations Baroque Orchestra.
He performed in festivals and venues in many European countries, in the Middle and Far East and in Latin America.
Among others in Styriarte Festival (Graz), Banchetto musicale in Vilnius, Musichè in Bari, Marco Fodella in Milan, the Early Music Festival of Riga, the Via Medieval, the FIA festival of Costa Rica, the Hellenic Festival, the Manama Festival in Bahrain and in venues such as the Megaron and the Opera House of Athens, the Konzerthaus of Vienna, the Pablo Casals Hall of Tokyo, the Sala Verdi in Milan.
He took part in the European tour of the award winning G.Fr. Händel’s opera production “Alessandro” with Armonia Atenea
with concerts in Paris, Versailles, Amsterdam, Bruxelles, Bucarest, Halle, Vienna, Moscow etc.

Teaching

  • Senior lecturer (tenure) at the Ionian University – Department of Music Studies
  • Coordinator and founder of the Centre for Early Music at the Athens Conservatoire

Lectures / Masterclasses / Workshops

  • Netherlands Institute of Athens, December 2024
  • Aristoteles University of Thessaloniki, November 2024 
  • Sibelius Academy of Music Helsinki, December 2022
  • Haute Ecole de Musique Geneve, as guest, 2019-2020
  • Kings College London, October 2019
  • Music village Pelion, 2007-2016
  • Samos Early Music Academy, 2018-2024

Publications

Article: “Aspects of the medieval flute between East and West”, Traverso Historical Flute Newsletter, ed. By Linda Peretska, Oshkosh, USA, 2022.

Article in the volume “Cross-Cultural Encounters in Medieval Greece after 1204. The Evidence of Art and Material Culture”
Title: “Western music and poetry at the Kingdom of Thessalonica – Music and historiography of the 4th crusade”
Serie: Byzantioς. Byzantine Studies in Byzantine History and Civilization, Brepols Editions, Belgium, 2021.

Book: «Ουμανισμός και Μουσική στην ιταλική Αναγέννηση» in Greek [Humanism and music in the Italian Renaissance], Fagottobooks, Athens, 2020.

Article: “The Torino Codex Ms J.II.9 or else the Codex of Cyprus” on the volume following the exhibition “Nicosia: the birth and evolution of a capital from the 10th to the 16th centuries” Levendis Municipal Museum of Nicosia, Cyprus, 2020.

Book/CD: “Music of the Troubadours in the Latin Kingdom of Thessalonica after 1204″, bilingual edition English-Greek, Nefeli, Athens 2017. Based on the post doctoral research project under the same title funded by the Centre for Humanistic Studies Athens for the year 2016.  rchumanities.gr

Article: «Γάλλοι τροβαδούροι στη Θεσσαλονίκη της Φραγκοκρατίας», in Greek [French poets during the Franc occupation in Greece], in Greek, Polis magazine:History/Letters/Sciences pp. 74-79, vo. 25/48, Thessaloniki, 2014.

flutist
The flutist under the moonlight, ink in paper, Korea 18th-19th c.

Papers on conferences

“Music and Poetry of the Troubadours at the Latin Kingdom of Konstantinopolis after 1204”, Medieval and Renaissance international conference, Lisbon, 2021.
medren2021lisbon.hcommons.org

“Musique et poétique des troubadours au royaume latin de Thessalonique après 1204”
Sorbonne, Paris June, 2021.

“Music and Poetry at the Latin Kingdom of Thessalonica after 1204”, Symposium Modus-Modi-Modality, Zypern, 2017.
modality2017conference.com

“Tels rit au main: Machaut’s only lament with music, an analysis”, International Conference – Guillaume de Machaut Project: The Works of Guillame de Machaut: Music, Image, Text in the Middle Ages, Universität von Exeter, UK, 2013.
machaut.exeter.ac.uk

“Zefiro, Tirsi e Ninfa: Minor mythological characters of the Italian madrigal”, Symposium: «Ancient myths and musical creation», Thessaloniki 21-22.10.2012.
music.uoa.gr

Discography

Ostium, New CD – Flute album, Carpe Diem Records, 2023

Music from the Court of Lusignan; The codex of Cyprus, Ex Silentio, Carpe Diem Records, 2021

Lethe, Ex Silentio, Carpe Diem Records, 2020

Mneme, Carpe Diem Records, 2015

Nell’ autunno di Bisanzio, Ex Silentio, G. Dufay, M.Chryssafes, Talanton 2010

Duo Goliardi, Polifonia in due, works by J. S. Bach, G. Kyriakakis, P. Liakakis, J. Walther, ARKYS 2007

His Radio broadcast program Ars Nova for the Third program of the Greek Radio is dedicated to medieval and renaissance music:
ertecho.gr/radio

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