Award-winning violinist-composer Adonis Alvanis has been described as “Brilliant”, “Dramatic” and “Memorable” by the international press. Introducing new and rarely played music side by side with innovative interpretations of more well-known works, he also frequently premieres pieces written for him while his own music is heard throughout the world.

Born in London, he began playing the violin in early childhood and was taught by his father, whose own teacher Issay Barmas was a pupil of the legendary 19th century violinist, Joseph Joachim. At the age of six, Adonis Alvanis was invited to attend Nadia Boulanger’s masterclasses at Fontainebleau, subsequently completing his studies with Yfrah Neaman and Hans Keller at London’s Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

Adonis Alvanis made his acclaimed London recital debut at the South Bank’s Purcell Room at the age of 17. He has since made regular appearances throughout the UK as well as performing in North America and throughout Europe, with concerts in New York, Paris, Vienna, Berlin, Amsterdam, Madrid and Athens, among many others.

As a guest member of the Ensemble Modern he has worked closely with such composers as György Ligeti and Steve Reich, premiering their music at some of Europe’s most renowned concert halls including London’s Barbican Centre, the Berliner Philharmonie, the Vienna Konzerthaus and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.

Traversing successfully into the fields of television and film music both as a violinist and arranger, Adonis Alvanis has recorded for the BBC, Virgin Records America, EMI Records and Sony Classical. As a soloist he is heard on numerous soundtracks, most notably the BBC’s flagship TV series Walking with Dinosaurs, which broke global records with several hundred million viewers watching in over 40 countries. BBC Worldwide released the BAFTA-winning, Emmy-nominated soundtrack as a CD album. As an orchestral contractor and lead violinist he has recorded music for the motion picture soundtrack of The Saint, as well as working with ground-breaking pop groups such as Portishead, whose first album gained platinum status, and Mansun, whose No. 1 selling album Attack of the Grey Lantern features a 33-piece string orchestra hand-picked and led by Alvanis.

Diabolus, one of his earliest compositions, received its first performance at London’s South Bank Centre in 1991. Winning the Lennox Berkeley Prize the following year, the work was featured at the Oxford Music Festival and the Royal Overseas League’s Music with a View, with further performances in New York, Philadelphia, and Tokyo. Ulterior Motives was given its world premiere at Chicago’s Cultural Center in 2002, broadcast live on WFMT Radio and on cable television as part of the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concerts. It was subsequently performed in New York and St. Petersburg, receiving its European premiere in 2003 at the Emilia Romagna Festival in Italy. Both Praeludium and his arrangement of Franz Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 have been extensively performed in the USA and Japan. Praeludium received its US premiere in New York and its Asian premiere at Osaka’s Symphony Hall, while the Hungarian Rhapsody was presented on the NHK TV network. The world premiere of Nightscape was given at the Hyogo Performing Arts Center in Japan in 2007.

In the purely classical realm, Adonis Alvanis has written cadenzas for the Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky and Mozart Violin Concertos, the latter composed for violinist Kyung-Wha Chung. First performed in 2003 in New York, his cadenza for the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto is the only one written other than the composer’s own.

In 2021, Adonis Alvanis was invited as Co-Leader of the Ensemble Modern Orchestra for the Ensemble Modern’s 40th Anniversary tour of Europe. The EMO presented the world premiere of A House of Call. My Imaginary Notebook by Heiner Goebbels, opening at the Musikfest Berlin and streamed live by the Berliner Philhamoniker's Digital Concert Hall. Further concerts followed in Cologne, Düsseldorf, Hamburg, Munich, Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Vienna. A CD album of A House of Call recorded at Munich’s Prinzregenten Theater was released by ECM Records in 2022 and was awarded the German Record Critics' Prize in the Contemporary Music and Crossing Borders categories.

Adonis Alvanis was Sir Georg Solti’s Music Consultant for his Carnegie Hall Project in New York in 1994. He has been an Independent Juror for the Orchestre National de France auditions headed by Kurt Masur, and subsequently Daniele Gatti, since 2003.

Adonis Alvanis is an Associate of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and a Fellow of the London College of Music.