Odysseas Lavaris

Odysseas Lavaris, born in Greece in 1986, won the Panhellenic School Competition in 2002 and attended master classes with Zakhar Bron and Sergey Kravchenko as a young violinist. He initially studied violin with Albrecht Winter and Ingeborg Scheerer at the Musikhochschule in Cologne, where he began studying viola with Werner Dickel after his graduation.

In 2013, he joined Professor Gareth Lubbe's class at the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen, where he completed his Viola master's degree in 2017 with top grades and distinction. 

At the same time, he studied there with the Evenos Quartet in Andreas Reiner's Master's and Konzertexamen class. He received significant musical inspiration from collaborations with ensembles and musicians such as the Casals Quartet and Kuss Quartet, Garth Knox, Claudio Bohórquez, Kent Nagano, and Enoch zu Guttenberg. With the Evenos Quartet, he was a scholar of Villa Musica, won awards at international competitions, and regularly gave concerts in Germany and abroad. 

He has participated in international festivals as a chamber musician and soloist, such as the Stellenbosch Music Festival in South Africa, Convivium Musicum in Serbia, and Klasik Keyifler in Cappadocia. He was a member of the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie, an intern at the Duisburg Philharmonic, and a member of the KlangVerwaltung Orchestra in Munich.

Since March 2019, he has held the position of Principal First Violist of the Bergische Symphoniker and of the ensemble Les Essences, where he has been able to take part in many different programs and formations, both in the orchestral repertoire and as a soloist and chamber musician.