Irini Tsirakidis

The mezzo-soprano Irini Tsirakidis was born in Wiesbaden and grew up in Piraeus in Greece. She completed her vocal training with the baritone Kostas Paskalis, graduating with distinction. She is a prizewinner of the Maria Callas Competition in Athens and of the Aragall Competition in Spain.

Irini Tsirakidis has performed at prestigious opera houses and concert halls worldwide, among them La Scala, Milan, the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, the Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, the Teatro dell’Opera in Rome, the Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam, the opera houses of Bilbao, Bologna, Trieste, Strasbourg, Perm, Dallas, Madison, Minneapolis, Tulsa and Santiago de Chile, and Carnegie Hall in New York, the Kennedy Center in Washington, the Kharkiv Philharmonic Hall, the Saint Petersburg Philharmonia, the Royal Albert Hall in London and the Palau de la Música in Barcelona.

Irini Tsirakidis has 17 years of experience as a singing teacher and works with many of the Greek conservatories. For the past 14 years she has been a professor at the Athenaeum Conservatory in Athens.

Since 2018 she has been a member of the interdisciplinary group Voice Mentoring, which is dedicated to vocal rehabilitation and to providing the most up-to-date knowledge on the use of the singing voice. She is also a founding member of the not-for-profit organization Phonoquest, which aims to enhance culture, scientific research and education relating to the human voice.

Together with the pianist Dimitra Kokkinopoulou and the cellist Yiorgos Kaloudis, Irini Tsirakidis formed Trio Thesis in order to perform works by contemporary Greek composers. She also sings early music in a duo with Yiorgos Kaloudis, who accompanies her on the classical Cretan lyre.