Konstantinos Charil. Karagounis

Curriculum Vitae

Constantinos Karagounis, Associate Professor of Byzantine Ecclesiastical Music of the Ecclesiastical Academy of Athens, was born in Anakasia Volos on July 8, 1965 to Charilaos and Helen Karagounis. He completed general studies at the Ecclesiastical High School of Volos. In 1983 he entered the Theological School of Aristotle University, graduating in 1987.

He learned Eccl. Music from Protopsaltes Joannis Schoris (School of Byzantine Music, Holy Metropolis of Demetrias, Volos), Chrysanthos Theodosopoulos and Harilaos Taliadoros (School of Byzantine Music, Holy Metropolis of Thessaloniki), Spyridon Peristeris and Lazarus Kouzinopoulos (Conservatory of Athens), Emmanuel Hatzimarkos (Municipal Conservatory of Volos) and Periklis Mavroudis (Macedonian Conservatory of Thessaloniki). He was a member of the choir of chanters “The Maistores of Psaltic Art”, directed by Grigorios Stathis.

He was taught Greek Traditional and Arabic-Persian Music, and the musical instrument Canonaki (Qanun) by the Asia Minor musician Panagiotis Acheilas (Volos), Petros Tampouris and Anies Agopian (Athens).

In 1998 he was appointed as a teacher of Theology, and from 1998 to 2006 he served as a special teacher of Eccl. Music at the Musical High School of Volos.

He collaborated with the Department of Music Studies of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (2004-2006), teaching the courses “Byzantine Music Theory and Practice I-II”.

From 2006-2011 he served as Head of Cultural Affairs of the Department of Secondary Education in Magnesia.

In 2000 he was proclaimed Doctor of Byzantine Musicology of the Faculty of the University of Athens under the supervision of Professor Gr. Th. Stathis. In his doctoral dissertation “The Tradition and Notational ‘Exegesis’ of the Melody of the Cherubic Hymn in Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Composition”, he collected about 1000 Byzantine and post-Byzantine musical setting, of the Cherubic Hymn, works of approximately 180 composers and he proposed a method for the morphological analysis of the Byzantine Melodies. He also offered a way of distinguishing the melodic “theseis” (phrases) of the Papadic Genre and interpreting the “theseis” in the New Method of Analytical Notation.

In July 2010 he was unanimously elected Assistant Professor of Byzantine Eccl. Music of the Eccl. Academy of Athens, where he was appointed 19 February 2013. In October 2018, he was unanimously elected Associate Professor of Ath.Eccl.Ac. on the same cognitive subject (Φ.200/3/34755/Ζ2/5-3-2019.  –  Φ.Ἐ.Κ. 475/Γ΄/3-4-2019).

In August 2013, with the contribution of significant and known musicologists people, he has founded the Department of Psaltic Art and Musicology of the Volos Academy for Theological Studies. Now, he is the Director of this Departement and has already developed a large amount of scientific activity (e. g. he has taken part in many scientific conferences, has curated several publications and also has organized a lot of conferences, workshops, and other training activities).

He has published a number of works and has participated in many international academic conferences in Greece and abroad. His general interests focus on the history, codicology, paleography and theory of chanting, and he specifically deals with the recording of the chanting tradition of Magnesia, the teaching of Eccl. Music, and the theology and literature of the Psaltic Art.

In 1992 he founded the “Pan. Acheilas Association for Research, Preservation, and Radical Restoration of the Music of the Greeks”, of which he served as president, and manager of the School of Greek Music, Choir, and the Orchestra of Traditional Music, as well as directing the choir of chanters. He is a founder, director, and teacher of many schools of Traditional Greek / Byzantine Music and Traditional Musical Instruments.

Untill now he has served for 37 years as a chanter and choirmaster at various churches in the Holy Metropolises of Demetrias and Larissa.

He has been elected to four terms as a member of the Board of Directors of the Chanters’ Union of Volos, and in 2010 was elected General Secretary of the Federation of Chanters’ Unions in Greece.

Finally, he has served nine terms as a member of the Board of Directors of the Institute of Byzantine Musicology.