Alkinoos Ioannidis was born and raised in Nicosia, Cyprus. He studied classical guitar at the European Conservatory and in 1989, aged 20, he moved to Athens, Greece. He spent the next three years studying theatre at the National Theatre Drama School, and philosophy at the Athens University. In 1993 he was signed by Universal Music.
Since then he has released many solo albums. All of them went gold or platinum. His work spreads from songwriting to symphonic music and from experimental to fusion. As a guest singer, he has recorded on more than 40 albums with various artists. He has also written songs, arranged and produced albums for other artists, as well as music for dance and theater, while his symphonic work is being played often by orchestras in Greece and abroad. He has been influenced by the traditional Cypriot music, the Greek composers of the last decades, Byzantine, Classical and Rock.
As a songwriter, he keeps his own band, formed by some of the best Greek soloists, giving 50-100 live performances per year, while he often appears solo in 5,000 people theatres or small clubs. In his lives, he combines electric music with choir, improvisation with written music, classical elements with progressive rock, Greek and Middle East influences with jazz.
As a singer, composer, arranger and multi-instrumentalist, he has collaborated with orchestras and ensembles including the Absolute Ensemble of New York, the Bulgarian National Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Greek Radio and TV Symphony Orchestra, the Athens Kamerata, the Cypriot State Orchestra, the Greek State Orchestra, the Thessaloniki State Orchestra, the Camerata Europaea, the Manos Hadjidakis Ensemble, the Yiannis Markopoulos’ Palintonos Armonia, the Mikis Theodorakis’ Popular Orchestra.
In November 2009, the Academic Symphony Orchestra Dmitri Shostakovich of St. Petersburg and the choir “Lege Artis”, gave a full house, very successful concert with his music at the Glazunov theatre of the Rimsky-Korsakov State Conservatory. Four years earlier, he had attended composition lessons there, with legendary Russian composer Boris Tishchenko, to whom Alkinoos dedicated this concert.
In April 2010, he had a full-house concert with his classical work at the Kammermusiksaal of the Berlin Philharmonie. The same program was also sold out in October 2010 at the Athens Concert Hall, in Greece, with the Cyprus Symphony Orchestra. In May 2011, his works were the opening concert of the “White Nights” Festival of Petrozavodsk, Russia, with the Karelia Philharmonic Orchestra.
Since December 2010, he is a member of the board of the Athens Concert Hall.
Alkinoos pursued a career in acting before devoting himself to music. One of the youngest ever actors to play primary roles at the ancient theatre of Epidaurus, he played there twice, in 1993 and 1997. He has also starred in television and on film.
Among his diverse activities, he is the baroque-flutist, percussionist and singer of the cult, avant-garde group FMS (Friends of Miltos Sahtouris). He also gives annual seminars on creative writing to postgraduate literature students, at the Florina University.
He has performed in New York (Madison Square Garden, 1996, The Metropolitan Museum, 1999, The Lincoln Center, 2001, SummerStage Festival at the Central Park, 2002, The Skirball Center for the Performing Arts at NYU, 2004, 2007, BMCC Tribeca Performing Arts Center, 2009), Chicago, Indiana, many times in Germany (Munich - Carl Orff Saal, 2008, 2010, Berlin - Berlin Philharmonie, 2010, Quasimodo Jazz Club, 2005, 2007, 2009, KulturBrauerei 2006, Cologne – Stadtgarten, 2007, 2008, 2009, Nurnberg – Tafelhalle 2005, 2007, Stimmen Festival, 2006, Rudolstadt Festival, 2007, Studtgart, Frankfurt, Hamburg), Russia (St. Petersburg 2009, Petrozavodsk 2011), Argentina, UK (London - The Hellenic Center, 2000, The Queen Elizabeth Hall 2002, 2007, 2010, Manchester, Brighton, Birmingham), Australia, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Romania, Georgia, Slovakia, Serbia, France, Luxemburg, Egypt, several times at the Acropolis Theatre of Athens and the Athens Concert Hall.