Antastasia Christofakis

Anastasia Christofakis

Assistant Professor of Music, Clarinet

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Anastasia Christofakis has performed around the world, but only buys bagels in her hometown of Syosset, New York. Having purchased a down coat for her chilly years in Chicago, Illinois and several pairs of flip flops for her time in humid Tallahassee, Florida, Anastasia finally settled into the temperate climate of Greenville, South Carolina where she serves as Assistant Professor of Clarinet at Furman University.

Anastasia is a sought-after educator, having held positions with Sistema Ravinia in Illinois and the InterHarmony International Music Festival in Italy. Most recently, Anastasia has taken on the role of Coordinator of the Chamber Music Intensive at the New England Music Camp, hosted at the Snow Pond Center for the Arts in Sidney, Maine.

Outside of her teaching schedule, Anastasia enjoys collaborating with others to expand the scope and diversity of new music, as well as its accessibility. Along with Meraki Duo co-founder Elizabeth G. Hill (piano), Anastasia was awarded a 2018 grant from Chamber Music America to collaborate with composer Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate. The subsequent work, Heloha Okchamali (Blue Thunder), premiered at the New Music DC Conference, in Washington, D.C. in September 2019. Meraki is set to release their first album, Within, in December of 2022.

Anastasia also performs and serves as the Vice President of Education and Community Outreach of What is Noise - an award-winning Pierrot ensemble made up of musicians from around the world. A non-profit organization, What is Noise focuses its mission on building community through music. Under Anastasia’s direction, What is Noise has been invited for residencies across the United States, including Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts and the Parish School in Houston, Texas, where the group works with neurodivergent students to expand their access to new music.

Thanks to a generous grant from the Presser Foundation in 2014, Anastasia and traveled to Armenia where she explored music of the Armenian genocide and studied the duduk with Gevorg Dabaghyan at Yerevan State Conservatory. The findings from her project - 2,000 years of history, 100 years of survival: Armenia, the story of a people through their music - has been presented at universities across the United States as well as the International Clarinet Association’s Annual Conference in Knoxville, Tennessee, and published in The Clarinet.

She is a Royal Global Performance Artist and performs on Firebird clarinets and Brian Corbin clarinet products.

Honors & Awards

  • Chamber Music America’s Classical Commissioning Award (2018)
  • Montgomery County Artists and Scholars Grant (2018)
  • Presser Foundation Music Award (2014 – 2015)
  • Gettysburg National Military Park Artist Residency (December 2017 – January 2018)
    Granted by the National Parks Arts Foundation

Education

  • Florida State University; DM
  • Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University; MM
  • James Madison University; BM in Music Education

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