Giorgos Kanaris, born in Athens, studied singing with, among others, Josef Metternich in Munich and attended the master class of Daphne Evangelatos at the Munich University of Music.
In 2005 he received the special prize in the Oratorio/Song category at the Grand Prix Maria Callas and was engaged for various concerts with Helmuth Rilling.
At the Munich Philharmonic and at the Cairo Opera House he appeared in Orff’s »Carmina Burana«. Further guest engagements took him to Athens, the Prinzregententheater Munich, the Margravial Opera House Bayreuth, and to the opera houses in Essen, Dortmund, Gelsenkirchen, Nuremberg, Heidelberg, Kaiserslautern, Bremen, Coburg, Klagenfurt am Wörthersee and Montepulciano.
Since the 2009/2010 season, Giorgos Kanaris has been a permanent ensemble member at Theater Bonn.
There he could be heard in 2024/25 as Scarpia in Puccini’s »Tosca«, as the Father in Humperdinck’s »Hänsel und Gretel« and as Belcore in Donizetti’s »L’elisir d’amore«, and in the 2025/26 season he will sing Barak in R. Strauss’ »Die Frau ohne Schatten« and Sharpless in Puccini’s »Madama Butterfly«.
In addition to opera singing, Giorgos Kanaris is also active in the song repertoire. His repertoire includes Schumann’s »Dichterliebe« and »Liederkreis«, Schubert’s »Schwanengesang«, »Winterreise« and »Die schöne Müllerin«, Ravel’s »Don Quichotte«, as well as songs by R. Strauss and Pfitzner.
Giorgos Kanaris is a prize-winner of the Schloss Laubach Competition 2009. In 2010 he received the Prize of the Opernfreunde Bonn, which is awarded every two years. He was also a scholarship holder of the Richard Wagner Association in 2011.
In April 2017, the CD entitled »Songs of Yearning – Sehnsuchtslieder« was released by Hänssler CLASSIC, on which he interprets Beethoven’s »An die ferne Geliebte« and Schubert’s »Schwanengesang«. In January 2020, the CD »Invitation au Voyage« was released, on which he sings chansons by Duparc, Ravel, Ibert and Debussy.