Dr Dionysios Kyropoulos FHEA

Biography

Dionysios is a teacher, researcher and coach. He joined Guildhall in 2018, where he teaches acting, movement and gesture to singers at the Vocal Studies Department, and visual rhetoric to instrumentalists at the Historical Performance Department. He also works as an Academic Tutor for the Creating and Performing Knowledge course at the Department of Academic Studies, teaching first-year students and supervising final-year dissertations.

Over the past decade, Dionysios has developed a diverse portfolio career that spans performance, stage direction, teaching and research. He began his studies as an actor at the Theatre of Changes drama school in Greece, before reading music at City University London and training as an opera singer with Robert Dean at the Guildhall. In 2012 he transitioned to teaching and stage directing, while developing his research into Baroque gesture with an interest in using historical acting techniques in conjunction with modern theatrical practices to build new tools for teaching acting to performers undertaking classical singing training. He further developed his research during his postgraduate studies at the University of Cambridge and his visiting research fellowship at Harvard University, and in 2023 he gained a doctorate from the University of Oxford.

Dionysios has taught acting to singers at City University London, where he ran the Opera Ensemble in 2012, and worked as a historical acting tutor at the Baroque Opera Studio of the University of Burgos in Spain in 2013, 2014 and 2015. In 2014 he founded Theatron Novum, a student theatre and opera production company at the University of Oxford that offered acting training to performers at the beginning of their careers. He has also worked as a historical acting coach at Newcastle University, Shenandoah University, Benslow Music, Dowland Works, the International Rameau Summer School, and Schola Cantorum of Oxford.

As a singer, Dionysios has performed numerous operatic roles in the UK and abroad and has worked with companies including the British Youth Opera, Cambridge Handel Opera, MidAmerica Productions, Riverside Opera, Tara Arts, Mantissa Opera, Lucid Arts, Rose Opera Company, Skull of Yorick Productions, Unexpected Opera and Longborough Festival Opera. His performance experience afforded Dionysios an intimate understanding of the technical and emotional challenges that singers face, shaping his approach to teaching.

His directing career has also given him extensive experience working with performers of any age and level. Dionysios has directed several Baroque operas, including Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo, Cavalli’s Gli amori d’Apollo e di Dafne, Blow’s Venus and Adonis, Pergolesi’s Livetta e Tracollo, Handel’s Tamerlano, Partenope and Rodelinda, and Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, The Indian Queen, The Prophetess and The Fairy Queen. Other directing work includes two plays, Molière’s The Doctor in Spite of Himself and Coward’s Hay Fever, and two contemporary operas, Timothy Kraemer’s Ulysses and the Wooden Horse and David Earl’s Strange Ghost. His productions have been staged at the Oxford Playhouse, Kings Place London, Cambridge Festival Theatre, Keble O’Reilly Theatre, Burton Taylor Studio, and the Teatro Principal de Burgos in Spain.

Dionysios’ doctoral thesis, Teaching Acting to Singers: Harnessing Historical Techniques to Empower Modern Performers (University of Oxford, 2023), is the culmination of twelve years of teaching, performance and directing experience, and constitutes a new method for the dramatic training of classical singers. The new teaching method is based on 150 historical treatises covering gesture, rhetoric, emotions, personality and aesthetics, and has been shaped through the integration of modern pedagogy and theatrical practices to create a comprehensive set of innovative and specialised tools for helping singers create beautiful and captivating dramatic performances. Dionysios welcomes doctoral proposals on this subject.

Dionysios is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA), and an Affiliate Member of the Association of Dyslexia Specialists in Higher Education (ADSHE) and the European Mentoring & Coaching Council (EMCC). In parallel to his artistic work, Dionysios writes on neurodiversity and works as a specialist life, career and academic coach for people with ADHD.

www.kyropoulos.com