Karina Canellakis is Chief Conductor of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra (RFO) since 2019, and Principal Guest Conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra since 2021. Acclaimed internationally for the interpretive depth and emotional impact of her performances, Karina is welcomed by the world’s finest musical institutions.
The 26/27 season features her debut at the Bayerische Staatsoper (Munich) with a new production of Massenet’s Werther by director Marie-Eve Signeyrole, as well as return engagements with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Chicago Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, and Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin. She also makes her debut with the Pittsburgh Symphony, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, and Gothenburg Symphony.
Karina made her conducting debut with the Vienna Philharmonic in January 2026 at the Mozartwoche Salzburg, and has developed close relationships with several of the world’s leading orchestras, regularly returning to European orchestras such as the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Orchestre de Paris, and Vienna Symphony. She is a repeat guest with the top American orchestras such as the New York Philharmonic, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco symphonies, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the Cleveland and Philadelphia Orchestras. Karina was Principal Guest Conductor of the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin from 2019-2023, and in 23/24 was a featured Artist-in-Residence at Vienna’s Musikverein. She has toured Australia and made her debut in Japan in July 2025 with the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra and at the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo.
April 2023 saw the start of a multi-album collaboration between Karina, the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, and Pentatone, with their debut release, Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra and Four Orchestral Pieces, earning a GRAMMY nomination. Her second album, Bartok’s Duke Bluebeard’s Castle, was released in April 2025 to glowing international reviews and was the winner of BBC Music Magazine’s 2026 Opera Award. A third album, pairing Rachmaninoff’s The Bells and Symphonic Dances, was released to critical acclaim in June 2026. Karina was a featured artist for the launch of Apple Music Classical with a recording of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with Alice Sara Ott and the RFO. She has also released Tchaikovsky Symphonies 5 & 6 on the LPO Label.
Last season, Karina made her debut to rave reviews with Staatsoper Hamburg in a production of Bartok’s Duke Bluebeard’s Castle and Zemlinsky’s A Florentine Tragedy directed by the company’s new intendant, Tobias Kratzer. She conducts at least one opera-in-concert each season with the RFO in the Concertgebouw, featuring Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande in 26/27. Past concert operas include Britten’s Peter Grimes, a multi-year Janáček cycle (From the House of the Dead, The Cunning Little Vixen, Kát’a Kabanová, The Makropulos Affair) as well as Wagner’s complete Siegfried, and acts of Tristan und Isolde and Die Walküre. She made her critically acclaimed Santa Fe Opera debut in the summer of 2024 with Richard Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier, and conducted the Olivier Py production of Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées. In previous seasons, she has conducted a wide range of opera productions including Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Die Zauberflöte and Le nozze di Figaro.
With the RFO, Karina programs an eclectic season of wide-ranging repertoire, conducting new commissions alongside great masterworks in Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw and TivoliVredenburg in Utrecht. With the LPO, she conducts three programs in London’s Royal Festival Hall, followed by a tour to the Canary Islands.
Already known to many in the classical music world as a virtuoso violinist, Karina grew up in New York City where she learned conducting and score-reading from her father, Martin Canellakis, piano with her mother, Sheryl, and regularly played chamber music with her cellist brother, Nick. She was then encouraged to become a conductor by Sir Simon Rattle while playing as a violinist in the Berlin Philharmonic’s Karajan-Akademie. She performed for several years as soloist, guest leader, and chamber musician, spending summers at the Marlboro Music Festival, until conducting eventually took over after she won the Sir Georg Solti Award in 2016.
2026-2027
