Marios Papadopoulos is Founder and Music Director of the Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra. Described by The Times at his 1975 piano recital debut as having ‘all the attributes of one of the world’s greatest players’, Papadopoulos has gone on to enjoy an international career both as pianist and conductor. He has appeared as soloist with, and conducted many of the world’s greatest orchestras and has worked with a host of eminent musicians including Vladimir Ashkenazy, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Janine Jansen, Evgeny Kissin, Maxim Vengerov, Renée Fleming, Martha Argerich and Lang Lang. A great exponent of the German Classical repertoire, Papadopoulos has directed from the keyboard the complete cycle of all the Mozart and Beethoven Piano Concertos and has conducted all nine Beethoven Symphonies on three separate occasions.

A prolific recording artist, Papadopoulos’s catalogue includes his critically acclaimed Beethoven sonatas, set on a level with Schnabel, Brendel, Barenboim and Wilhelm Kempff (Daily Telegraph, Classic FM Magazine Critics’ Choice), performances of Stravinsky’s Concerto for Piano and Wind with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (Hyperion), works by Mozart, Mussorgsky, César Franck, the 24 Preludes and Fugues by Shostakovich and new recordings of the Brahms and Sibelius violin concertos, conducting the Oxford Philharmonic with Maxim Vengerov as soloist. As a pianist, he and Vengerov have recorded the complete Brahms violin sonatas and also performed these in a recital at Vienna’s Musikverein. In 2020, Papadopoulos released two new recordings on the Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra record label: Classical Favourites and Piano Favourites, featuring well-known works by Liszt, Chopin, Rachmaninov and more.

In the summer of 2021, Papadopoulos published his first book—a memoir titled Beyond Dreams and Aspirations: My Journey to Oxford which charts his early career, the creation of the Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra, and his thoughts on musical interpretation. Marios Papadopoulos was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s 2014 New Year’s Honours List for services to music in Oxford.