Ioanna Sfekas-Karvelas

She has studied with Conrad Osborne in New York and with the renowned dramatic mezzo-soprano, Edna Garabedian, with whom Karvelas has served as assistant of her Artist Agency in Bonn, Germany.

Since then Karvelas has come to be known as the ambassador of Greek classical music, always performing along with her theatre engagements concerts which present a wealth of compositions of Greek composers, beginning with the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., Lincoln Center in New York City as well as in Germany, Austria, Poland, Bulgaria and Ukraine.

She specializes in the dramatic roles of Verdi, such as Lady Macbeth, which she has recorded in Poland with the Polish National Radio Orchestra, with Maestro William Yannuzzi conducting, the roles of Abigaille (Nabucco), Elisabetta (Don Carlos), Leonora (Trovatore and Forza del destino), Puccini's Turandot and Tosca, and the Wagnerian heroines.

Considered by her colleagues a Master Trainer, she has been invited by many institutions to hold master classes on vocal technique and interpretation of standard operatic repertory and to perform rarely performed song cycles such as Berlioz's "Nuits d'Ete," Wagner's "Wesendonck Lieder," Richard Strauss's "Vier letzte Lieder," Kalomiris's "Magic Herbs," etc.

Verdi and his librettist, Solera, substituted the true story of a Lesbiot heroine who donned male armor and saved the castle of Lesvos from the Ottoman invaders in 1450.