Panagiotis Giannakas

Panagiotis Giannakas was born in 2000 in Athens.

He is a prize winner of several international competitions including the prestigious Carl Nielsen Clarinet competition 2022(3rd prize), Cluj International Competition 2021(2nd Prize, special prizes by BAM cases and Vandoren), International Clarinet Competition “Cittá di Carlino” 2020(2nd prize), as well as some of the most important national competitions.

He took his first clarinet lessons with his grandfather and later enrolled at the Athens Conservatory from where he obtained his diploma with “Excellent and 1st prize unanimously” (prof.Spyros Mourikis). Since 2019, he is studying at the Haute École de Musique de Genève with prof.Romain Guyot.

He obtained the mark 6 out of 6 in his Bachelor final recital. He is since September 2022 on a “Master in Specialised Musical Performance - Soloist” degree in which he was accepted unanimously by the jury.

In 2017, barely 16 years old he got appointed as a member of the Academy of the Athens State Orchestra where he had the chance to play with great colleagues and also famous conductors and soloists. After some performances as solo clarinet, he started being regularly invited as a Guest Principal.

Since then, he has shared the stage with some of the most important conductors and soloists of today such as Vladimir Ashkenazy, Leonidas Kavakos, Gautier Capuçon, Renaud Capuçon, Maxim Vengerov, Sol Gabetta, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Pierre Bleuse, Elim Chan, Christoph Poppen, Anastasia Kobekina, Vladimir Fedoseyev, Pedro Halffter, Uroš Lajovic, Kornilios Michailidis, Vassilis Christopoulos and many more. He has appeared in Greece, France, Romania, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Finland, Egypt, USA in some of the most prestigious concert halls such as the Carnegie Hall.

In 2022, he won the audition of Principal Clarinet in the Athens State Orchestra.

As a soloist he has played with many orchestras including the Copenhagen Philharmonic Orchestra, Transylvania State Philharmonic, the Symphony Orchestra of the Municipality of Athens, the Symphony orchestra of Athens Conservatory, etc.

He is regularly invited in international music festivals such as the Pablo Casals Music Festival(France), the Puplinge Classique(Switzerland), Aegina Music Festival(Greece), etc.

He is the winner of several grants by foundations, including “Marescotti Foundation” (Switzerland), “Lyra Foundation”(Switzerland, without audition), “Georgios and Maria Vergoti Foundation”(Greece) and “Stavros Niarchos Foundation”(Greece)