Peter Tiboris, the renowned conductor and a member of Leadership 100, will conduct the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra in “Symphony at Sunset”, featuring his wife, dramatic soprano Eilana Lappalainen, on Thursday evening, February 12, 2015.

 The special program will include some of the most dramatic music in the classical repertoire by Verdi, Mozart, Beethoven, and, as a special treat, music by Theodorakis. Highlights include Verdi’s La Forza del Destino Overture, Beethoven’s Ah, Perfido and Symphony No. 7 and Mozart’s Overture to Marriage of Figaro. In addition, The University Chorus of the University of Central Florida, directed by Dr. David L. Brunner, will perform music from Theodorakis’ Zorba Ballet Suite.

Lappalainen, a Finnish-Canadian performer and one of the most respected interpreters of Strauss’ Salome, which she has performed at opera houses throughout the world, has also been acclaimed for performances in leading other operas, such as Lohengrin, Lulu, Der Rosenkavalier, Arabella, Jenufa, Madama Butterfly, Tosca, I Pagliacci, La Traviata, Turnandot, Don Giovanni and Aida. Besides performances on international stages, she has taken on extensive responsibilities as General Director of the Greek Opera Studio and Berlin Opera Studio, Artistic Director for the Opera Division of the Young Artists Festival Bayreuth, Associate Artistic Director of the International Festival of the Aegean and Artistic Administrator for MidAmerica Productions.

Tiboris, who founded MidAmerica Productions 31 years ago in Carnegie Hall, has performed 1200 concerts worldwide, of which 550 have occurred in Carnegie Hall. The Festival of the Aegean, which he founded in 2005 on the idyllic island of Syros, Greece, marks its 10th anniversary this year. Additionally, the beautiful theater in which the festival takes place—The Apollo Theater (“La Piccola Scala”) marks its 150th anniversary.

In 2013, Tiboris founded MidAm International, Inc., a company created to facilitate MidAmerica’s growing presence in Europe. In addition to the 9th Festival of the Aegean, MidAm International presented two concerts in Vienna during Easter Week. Encouraged by the overwhelmingly positive response to the Vienna concerts, MidAm International presented its first performances in June 2014 at the historic L’Eglise de la Madeleine in Paris.

Tiboris studied music education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, receiving a bachelor’s degree (B.M.) in 1970 and a master’s degree (M.S.) in 1974. While still an undergraduate, he became Assistant Choir Master at the Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church of Madison, under Michael Petrovich. From 1969 to 1971, he composed five pieces of Greek Orthodox liturgical music, all unpublished, but performed by various Greek Orthodox Church choirs in the U.S.  to this day. In 1980, he received a doctorate (Ed.D) in music education from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Between 1972 and 1984, he taught at colleges in Wisconsin, Illinois, New Hampshire, and Louisiana.

Tiboris has a special connection to Leadership 100 and Archbishop Iakovos of Blessed Memory. While serving as Associate Professor of Music at the University of Southwestern Louisiana in Lafayette in 1983, Tiboris was asked to organize a concert in New York to commemorate the 25th anniversary of Archbishop Iakovos as Primate of the Greek Orthodox Church of North and South America. The concert, on January 7, 1984, at Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center, brought together soloists, choruses from Louisiana and New York, and the American Symphony Orchestra for a Greek-themed program, marking the New York conducting debut of Peter Tiboris and the founding of MidAmerica Productions.

Since then, he has fashioned two distinct and highly successful careers, as a conductor of classical music and as a classical music entrepreneur. He has conducted much of the choral repertoire and numerous symphonic works, operas, and ballets, including world, U.S., and New York premieres of works by Beethoven, Mahler, Bruckner, Dinos Constantinides, Dello Joio, Dohnányi, Effinger, Philip Glass, Gregory Magarshak, Mozart, Nielsen, Schnittke, Taneyev, Tchaikovsky, and Mikis Theodorakis, among others. Among his proudest achievements was conducting the U.S. premiere of Mikis Theodorakis’ Elektra in Carnegie Hall in 2000. He has gone on to conduct major orchestras in 20 countries.