Kristo Kondakçi

The concert marked the American premiere of this earliest version of the first symphony, and the first time it has been heard in this form since its 1889 premiere.

Bahri Omari moved to the United States in 1914 to serve as chief editor of the first Albanian-American Newspaper, Dielli.

He then returned to Albania in the 1920s to serve as general secretary of the National Democratic Party of Albania and then as Minister of Foreign Affairs in the 1940s.

In 1945, after the Communist Regime came to power under Enver Hoxha, Bahri Omari was put on trial and executed.

Many other family members were either executed, imprisoned, exiled, or sent to internment areas.

Kristo Kondakçi's grandfather, Beqir Omari, also immigrated to the United States to help raise him and his brother, Gramoz Kondakçi.

At home, his grandfather would regularly make music and recount stories about the family and their history of Albania.

Kristo Kondakçi's main instrument was the piano.

He began teaching himself at the age of eleven after receiving a keyboard as a gift.

Beqir Omari's brother, Gramoz, was a virtuoso musician and doctor who was executed by Enver Hoxha in 1968.

Beqir's father (Kondakçi's great-grandfather), Eqerem Omari, was a noted agricultural scientist and one of the most important grain specialists in Albania.

Eqerem was a relative of noted Albanian politician Bahri Omari.

Kristo Kondakçi (born 30 June 1991) is an Albanian-American conductor who is currently the music director of the Kendall Square Orchestra, the Eureka Ensemble, and the Narragansett Bay Symphony Community Orchestra.

He is also the cofounder of the Women's Chorus, a choral program for women experiencing homelessness in Boston.

Kondakçi is an assistant professor of conducting at the Berklee College of Music.

Kristo Kondakçi was born in Tirana, Albania in 1991.

He immigrated to the United States with his family as political refugees when Kondakçi was five years old.

During the 20th Century, many members of Kondakçi's family were brutally persecuted by Albanian Dictator Enver Hoxha and the Albanian Communist regime.

Kondakçi's maternal grandfather, Beqir Omari, was imprisoned for eight years in the notorious Spaç Prison for performing western music.

He attended Sacred Heart School in Quincy, Massachusetts and continued at Boston College High School, graduating in 2009.

At the age of fifteen, Kondakçi began attending the preparatory school of New England Conservatory, studying piano with Tatyana Dudochkin, composition with Rodney Lister, and musical interpretation and conducting with Benjamin Zander and Courtney Lewis.

During his undergraduate studies in 2011, Kristo Kondakçi became involved in a special project to mark the centennial of composer Gustav Mahler's death.

With oversight and guidance by New England Conservatory professor Katarina Markovic and conductor Hugh Wolff, Kondakçi reconstructed a performing edition of the earliest version of Mahler's Symphony No. 1, which was thought to be lost for over 100 years, based on two of the earliest manuscript sources for the symphony.

The New England Conservatory Philharmonia performed this version in September 2011 under conductor Hugh Wolff to mark a semester long school festival around Mahler's music.

After graduating high school, he continued his studies at New England Conservatory, completing an Undergraduate degree in Composition with composer Michael Gandolfi (2013) and a Master's degree in Conducting with Charles Peltz (2015).

In 2014, while Kondakçi was pursuing his master's degree in conducting at New England Conservatory, he received an invitation from the National Theatre of Opera and Ballet of Albania (T.K.O.B.) to conduct the National Albanian Orchestra, which launched his professional conducting career.

He appeared in two performances with the orchestra, conducting the overture from Wagner's opera Tannhäuser and Mahler's Symphony No. 1.

The concerts were successful, receiving praise from the Albanian public and press.

Kondakçi maintains ties with the T.K.O.B.

After returning to the U.S. from Albania, Kondakçi was named the assistant conductor of the Boston Landmarks Orchestra, a professional orchestra in Boston, MA dedicated to making great music accessible to the whole community (2015-2017).

During his time with the orchestra, Kondakçi reinvigorated the orchestra's community educational programming.

Upon graduating New England Conservatory in 2015, Kondakçi was named the conducting fellow of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra (BPO) and Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra (2015-2018).

He also accompanied BPO conductor Benjamin Zander in concerts around the globe, including performances of Mahler's Symphony No. 2 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia with the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra (2015).

During his tenure with Boston Philharmonic, Kondakçi traveled with the Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra on three international tours.

He also designed and conducted the annual Young Composer's Initiative in partnership with the composition departments at New England Conservatory, Boston Conservatory, Berklee School of Music, and Harvard University, among others.

In 2017, Kondakçi partnered with cellist Alan Toda-Ambaras to launch the Eureka Ensemble, a professional orchestra based in Boston, dedicated to nurturing social impact through music.

Since its founding, the ensemble has partnered with acclaimed artists such as violist Kim Kashkashian and violinist Midori to engage in community-intensive programming focusing on immigrant and refugee youth and those impacted by homelessness.

Eureka Ensemble has also partnered with the School for the Environment at UMass Boston to address the impacts of climate change through music.

In 2018, Eureka Ensemble launched the Sheltering Voices Initiative, partnering with Boston area women's shelters to "empower women artists and composers, homeless women, educate the public on domestic abuse issues, and support local homeless shelters".

He has previously served as director of orchestras in an interim capacity at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst (2019) as well as assistant conductor with the Boston Landmarks Orchestra (2015-2017) and conducting fellow of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra and the Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra (2015-2018).