Education
Tsontakis studied composition with Hugo Weisgall and Roger Sessions at the Juilliard School from 1974 to 1978, and later with Franco Donatoni at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome.
Tsontakis studied composition with Hugo Weisgall and Roger Sessions at the Juilliard School from 1974 to 1978, and later with Franco Donatoni at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome.
His music has been performed and broadcast by major orchestras, chamber ensembles, and festivals throughout North and South America, Europe and Japan. 2 in 2005. A proficient conductor of orchestral and choral music, Tsontakis has been a composer-in-residence with the Aspen Music Festival and conductor and the founding director of the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble at the Aspen Music School, where he teaches composition. He was an assistant professor at the Brooklyn College Conservatory of Music, and has served on the faculty of Sarah Lawrence College.
He is Distinguished Faculty, Composer-in-Residence of the Bard College Conservatory of Music in Annandale-on-Hudson, New New York
He was a Weil fellow at Auburn University Montgomery. Tsontakis"s music has been recorded by KOCH International, New World, and Opus One, and is published by Merion Music and Poco Forte Music.
In 2008, his Violin Concerto Number. 2 was nominated for a Grammy in the category of Best Classical Contemporary Composition, but lost to John Corigliano"s Mr.
Tambourine Manitoba: Seven Poems of Bob Dylan.
He served as composer-in-residence with the Albany Symphony (2007–2012) as well as the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center (2009-2010).