Stefanos Kemanetzis is a composer, arranger, orchestrator, cellist, and educator who spent years in Greece writing serious classical music for esteemed ensembles like the Thessaloniki State Symphony Orchestra, and creating music curricula for the Drama School of the National Theatre of Northern Greece. Naturally, he decided that the logical next step was to move to New York and write musical theatre.
His work spans everything from a one-act original Greek operetta (Athanatos!) and an intermedial music-theatre performance piece on Albert Camus (A Sky Dripping with Stars), to the new musical Strings which he and his fabulous collaborator Jenna Christine describe as “something between Les Mis and Urinetown”. Most recently, American Opera Projects let him premiere his chamber opera Love, George inside actual vintage subway cars at the New York Transit Museum. It was as surreal and wonderful as it sounds.
Stefanos is a graduate of the NYU Tisch Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program, where a professor once looked at his work, told him there were “too many notes”, and suggested he “vacuum the woodwind section a bit”. He also holds a Bachelor’s in Composition and a Master’s in Music Sciences & Arts from the University of Macedonia, is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild, and plays a lot of cello. If you happen to know how to write a simple, tuneful theater song without accidentally modulating into six different keys and adding a cello solo, he would love to hear from you.
Stefanos Kemanetzis is a composer, arranger, orchestrator, cellist, and educator who spent years in Greece writing serious classical music for esteemed ensembles like the Thessaloniki State Symphony Orchestra, and creating music curricula for the Drama School of the National Theatre of Northern Greece. Naturally, he decided the logical next step was to move to New York and write musical theatre.
His work spans everything from a one-act original Greek operetta (Athanatos!) and an intermedial music-theatre performance piece on Albert Camus (A Sky Dripping with Stars), to the new musical Strings which he and his fabulous collaborator Jenna Christine describe as “something between Les Mis and Urinetown”. Most recently, American Opera Projects let him premiere his chamber opera Love, George inside actual vintage subway cars at the New York Transit Museum. It was as surreal and wonderful as it sounds.
Stefanos is a graduate of the NYU Tisch Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program, where a professor once looked at his work, told him there were “too many notes”, and suggested he “vacuum the woodwind section a bit”. He also holds a Bachelor’s in Composition and a Master’s in Music Sciences & Arts from the University of Macedonia, is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild, and plays a lot of cello. If you happen to know how to write a simple, tuneful theater song without accidentally modulating into six different keys and adding a cello solo, he would love to hear from you.