Dr Spyros Marinis (BMus First Class Hons, PhD). Born in Cholargos, Athens in 1982, he spent his childhood in Argos, Argolida in Greece. His first encounter with music came at the early age of seven years old, when he began studying music at the Argos Conservatory. There, he also studied clarinet, before graduating the Conservatory with a First Class Diploma in 2006. During his conservatory studies, he was also appointed leader of the Argos Wind Band clarinet section.
His overall musical education earned him a place with an awarded scholarship on clarinet performance at the University of Wales, Bangor, where he graduated in 2004 with a First Class Honours Degree (3rd in his class). His final clarinet recital is awarded one of the highest marks and his secondary dissertation on triple counterpoint trio sonata portfolio received the departmental prize as the best dissertation of its kind. He also attended classes in Ensemble Performance, Early Music, Harmony and Counterpoint, Conducting, Orchestration, Ethnomusicology, History of Music and Teaching Techniques.
In 2004 he is accepted in the University of Sheffield, UK as a performance MPhil/PhD student, where he graduated in 2008. His thesis is titled The Clarinet in Greece: A historical outline with examination of performing issues in a selection of pieces by Greek composers. His final PhD recital included works of Greek composers such as M. Kalomiris, I Xenakis, Th. Antoniou and D. Constantinides.
In 2009 he became a Visiting Research Fellow at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, UK (RNCM) and also worked at the prestigious Chethams School of Music. In 2010, he was accepted by Prof. Bela Kovacs, at the Liszt Academy in Budapest to work on performing his works.
While studying abroad, Spyros was the principal clarinettist of the University of Wales, Bangor and the University of Sheffield Symphony Orchestra. He has performed important works of the orchestral repertoire written by composers such as Brahms, Beethoven, Vaughan Williams, Berlioz, Sibelius, Mussorgsky, Walton etc. In December 2005, he was the principal clarinettist at the final concert for the centenary celebration of the University of Sheffield, while during the same year he also performed as principal in the opera ‘Orpheus in the Underworld’ by Offenbach.
In 2008, he recorded chamber music pieces by the Maltese composer Charles Camilleri. In 2010, he was the soloist (together with the RNCM Wind Orchestra) on a piece by the British composer Adam Gorb, which was broadcasted by the BBC Radio 3 and earned the composer the prize of Best Composer of 2010 on the area of wind orchestral music.
Over the years, he has also gained sufficient experience from performing a wide variety of orchestral and chamber music pieces on E-flat, basset horn and bass clarinet.
He has performed in Greece, UK, Malta, USA, the Netherlands, Italy and Sweden. More specifically, as a soloist, he has performed in places such as the Firth Hall in Sheffield (C.M. Weber Clarinet Concerto no.2 in E major op. 74) and the Manoel Theatre (various works by C. Camilleri).
In 2014, he received an invitation by Turkish Airlines to perform a solo recital as part of the company’s special gala in Gothenburg, Sweden, where he received special complimentary comments for his performance by Princess Sofia.
In 2013, at the ICA ClarinetFest in Assisi, Italy he performed solo pieces by the Greek composer Th. Antoniou and in 2010, during the ICA ClarinetFest Austin, Texas he received an Honorary Mention Award for his presentation on The Clarinet in Greece: Colours in Double by Kyriakos Sfetsas.
Moreover, in 2013, he received an invitation to coach a number of bamboo pipe tutors at a masterclass in the Netherlands (Baarlo) on performing issues of Greek traditional music. For his performances using the clarinet and the Greek traditional pipe, he has also been repeatedly awarded in competitions and performed at the Palace Theatre and Megaro Mousikis in Athens.
Over the past decade he has attended international masterclasses in Greece with Spyros Mourikis and David Campbell (Kalavrita, Corfu) and abroad (Bangor-Wales, Apeldoorn-Holland, Oostend-Belgium) with James Campbell, Charles Neidich, Robert Spring and Eddy Vanoosthuyse. He has also being a member of various ensembles performing works by a number of classical and contemporary composers such as Mozart (Trio, Quintet and Serenade for 13 Winds), Webern (Quartet, Canons), Takemitsu (Rainspell) etc.
His clarinet professors include Asimina Tsiamou, Peryn Clement Evans, Anthony Houghton, Nicholas Cox and Linda Merrick. During the academic year 2010-2011, he attended the class of Prof. Bela Kovacs at the Liszt Academy in Budapest.
Currently situated in Greece, Dr Marinis has worked as a clarinet professor at Pallini and Ilion Music High Schools in Athens, as well as Patra and Argolida Music High Schools. Since 2011, he holds the position of conductor of the Northern Kinouria Wind Band and coaches a number of clarinet students at Argos Conservatory and Arkadiko Conservatory.
Dr Marinis is an artist for D’Addario Woodwinds.