Karina Canellakis

Karina Canellakis is the Chief Conductor of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra since 2019, and the Principal Guest Conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra since 2021. As Chief Conductor of the RFO, she programs and leads a diverse and eclectic season of new and commissioned works by living composers alongside the great masterworks in Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw and TivoliVredenburg in Utrecht. Symphonic highlights of the season 2025/26 include Dmitri Shostakovich’s 5. Symphony, Olivier Messiaen’s „Turangalîla“ and Gustav Mahler’s 5th and 2nd Symphonies. They also travel to the Lucerne Festival and Musikfest Berlin. She will conduct the London Philharmonic Orchestra in concerts in London and on tour throughout Germany. Guest engagements this season include return visits to Swedish Radio Symphony, Wiener Symphoniker, Orchestre de la Swiss Romande and at Mozart Woche with Wiener Philharmoniker. She returns to the US with the San Francisco Symphony and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

Karina makes her debut at Staatsoper Hamburg with the new production „Frauenliebe und –sterben“ directed and created by Tobias Kratzer; combining masterpieces by three composers; Robert Schumann’s „Frauenliebe und Leben“, Alexander von Zemlinsky’s „Eine Florentinische Tragödie“ and Béla Bartók’s „Bluebeard’s Castle“. Recent productions with other houses have included Francis Poulenc’s „Dialogues des Carmélites“ at Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris and her Santa Fe Opera debut with an acclaimed production of Richard Strauss’ „Der Rosenkavalier“.  She conducts an opera-in-concert each season with the RFO in the Concertgebouw, and having completed a cycle of Leoš Janáček’s operas; 2025/26 will feature Britten’s „Peter Grimes“. April 2023 saw the start of a multi-album collaboration between Karina, the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic and Pentatone with their debut release, Bartók’s „Concerto for Orchestra“ and „Four Orchestral Pieces“, earning a Grammy nomination. The follow up album; Bartók’s „Bluebeard’s Castle“ (2025), was also highly acclaimed. 

Karina and the RFO were featured artists for the launch of Apple Music Classical with a recording of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with Alice Sara Ott. Since winning the Sir Georg Solti Conducting Award in 2016, Karina has developed close relationships with several of the world’s leading orchestras. She regularly returns to European orchestras such as the Bavarian Radio Symphony, Orchestre de Paris, Vienna Symphony, and Munich Philharmonic, and is a repeat guest with the top American orchestras such as the Boston, Chicago, San Francisco Symphonies, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the Cleveland and Philadelphia Orchestras. She was Principal Guest Conductor of the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin from 2019-2023, and in 2023/24 was a featured Artist-in-Residence at Vienna’s Musikverein. She has toured Australia and made her debut in Japan in July 2025. Karina Canellakis was born and raised in New York City. She now makes her home in Amsterdam with her husband and two children.