Haris Kittos is a Greek composer and visual artist who lives in London. In 1998, after concluding his studies in music and fine art in his home town, Thessaloniki, he moved to the UK in order to study composition at Trinity College of Music at postgraduate level with Andrew Lovett and Daryl Runswick. Further study with Diana Burrell and full scholarship at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama led to MMus with distinction in 2001. In 2008, fully funded by the AHRC and under the supervision of Julian Anderson, Dr Darla Crispin and Edwin Roxburgh, he concluded the DMus in composition at the Royal College of Music, where he is currently Composition and Academic professor.

 

Haris has also worked with Theodore Antoniou, Susan Bradshaw, Beat Furrer, Alexander Goehr and, as a participant of the Blue Touch Paper scheme of the London Sinfonietta, he was mentored by Georges Aperghis. His music has been performed throughout the UK, Europe and USA by Arditti Quartet, dissonArt, Ensemble Exposé, Ensemble In Extremis, ExplorEnsemble, Fukio Ensemble, Kammerorchester Basel, Milos Karadaglic, London Sinfonietta, Jane Manning, Mise-en Ensemble, Sarah Nicolls, Ensemble Nomad, UMS ‘n JIP and others. Participation in festivals has included the Born Creative Festival, Ear London Festival, Forum Wallis, InTransit Festival, Mixtur Festival, Mise-en Festival, Spoleto Festival and Taukay Contemporanea Festival among others.

 

As a visual artist, Haris participated in group exhibitions and had a solo exhibition during his studies at the School of Fine Arts, Aristotle University, under Vangelis Dimitreas. However, after moving to London, he kept his visual art private like a ‘secret escape’ while building his composer’s career. This allowed him extra time for furthering his research and artistic explorations in the stimulating dichotomy of being both a musician and visual artist. As his parallel processes of creating visual and musical artworks became increasingly intertwined, Haris is now presenting his work as a visual artist as well, while also producing new interdisciplinary and multimedia pieces.