Marios Papadopoulos (musician)

Papadopoulos has directed from the keyboard the complete cycle of all the Mozart Piano Concertos three times in his career. He has also conducted three complete cycles of the Beethoven symphonies and Piano Concertos directing from the keyboard. A fourth complete cycle of the symphonies and concertos as part of the 2020 Oxford Beethoven Festival to celebrate the composer’s 250th anniversary was cut short due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

In 2018, he conducted a new production of “The Marriage of Figaro” for the Greek National Opera at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center in Athens.

A prolific recording artist, Papadopoulos’s catalogue includes his critically acclaimed Beethoven sonatas, performances of Stravinsky’s Concerto for Piano and Wind with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (Hyperion), works by Mozart, Mussorgsky, César Franck and the twenty-four Preludes and Fugues by Shostakovich. Most recordings are now available on the Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra record label. He conducts the Oxford Philharmonic in new recordings of the Brahms and Sibelius violin concertos with Maxim Vengerov as soloist. As a pianist, he and Maxim Vengerov have recorded the complete Brahms violin sonatas and performed these in a recital at Vienna’s Musikverein in September 2016.

Guest conducting and soloist appearances included a 2015 UK tour with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Alison Balsom, Philharmonia Orchestra & Chorus, European Union Chamber Orchestra, and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. In March 2018, Papadopoulos appeared with the Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra at the prestigious Xinghai Concert Hall in China, directing Mozart Piano Concertos from the keyboard.

In 2015, Papadopoulos served on the jury of the Leeds International Piano Competition and, in 2016, the Wieniawski Violin Competition.

Papadopoulos holds a doctorate in music from City University and is both a member of the Oxford University Faculty of Music and Fellow by Special Election of Keble College Oxford. He became an Honorary Fellow of the Worshipful Company of Musicians in 2010 and was awarded Oxford City’s Certificate of Honour in 2013. Papadopoulos was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s 2014 New Year’s Honours List for services to music in Oxford.

Papadopoulos is dedicated to nurturing young talent and through his experience is able to impart knowledge to young artists, particularly during the prestigious Oxford Piano Festival, which he founded in 1999.

In 1998, he founded the Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra, the city’s professional symphony orchestra and the Orchestra in Residence at the University of Oxford. He remains the orchestra’s Music Director to this day.

Papadopoulos elicited high praise from the press with his 1974 London debut at the Queen Elizabeth Hall. Bryce Morrison described it in The Times as “an astonishing debut”. Following his recital in the Queen Elizabeth Hall a year later, the same critic described Papadopoulos in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (1975 edition) as having “all the attributes of one of the world’s greatest players”. He has since gone on to enjoy an international career both as pianist and conductor.

In 1972, he won the piano category prize in the Greater London Arts Association’s Young Musicians Scheme. In the same year, Sir Michael Tippett invited him to appear at the Bath International Music Festival in recital and as soloist in Tippett’s Fantasia on a Theme by Handel conducted by the composer.

Born in Cyprus, Papadopoulos began playing the piano at the age of 5. In 1967, he moved with his family to the UK to continue his musical education. His teachers were Ilona Kabos and Gina Bachauer. In 1969, at the age of 14, he received the ARCM Diploma from the Royal College of Music. In 1971, he made his debut at the Royal Festival Hall as soloist with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in one of the Robert Mayer Concerts for Children.

Marios Papadopoulos MBE (born 20 December 1954 in Limassol, Cyprus) is a Cypriot-born, British conductor and pianist. He is the founder and music director of the Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestra in Residence at the University of Oxford.