Greek-Australian Violinist Spiros Rantos has Died, Aged 78

A former teacher at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, Rantos passed away in a Brisbane hospital due to health issues

Violinist Spiros Rantos was born in Greece in 1945 into a family of musicians. Notably, his uncle Sotiris Tahiatis was the leading cellist of Greece’s National Symphony Orchestra, and the National Opera and Radio Orchestra.

From a young age, Rantos studied violin with Stelios Kafantaris at the National Conservatory and with Tatsis Apostolidis at the Athens Conservatory.

In 1964, he traveled to Austria, where he worked for a year in the Orchestra of the State Opera of Leeds as a first violinist. At the same time, he continued his studies at what is now the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna with Edward Melkus and Riccardo Odnoposov.

During this time, he won prizes at Italy’s “Forte dei Marmi” and France’s “Colmar” International Competitions, and performed across Vienna, Paris, London, Asia, and the U.S. 

From 1968, he was a professor at the Landesmusikschule in Graz and taught at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, specializing in early music and period instruments.

Also a member of the Greek chamber music trio with pianist Janis Vakarelis and cellist Byron Fidetzis, Rantos made over 55 records with the Deutsche Grammophon, Harmonia Mundi, and Adelcord and Grevillea labels. 

In the early 1970s, he created the Ensemble I Chamber Music Group and moved to Australia in 1976. Rantos soon settled in Melbourne, where he created the acclaimed Rantos Collegium chamber orchestra in 1986. 

Throughout his career, he commissioned and promoted over 400 performances around the world of music by Australian composers, as a soloist, chamber musician, and conductor.

He later taught at the Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne College of Advanced Education, University of Melbourne, and at the University of Brisbane.

“I am heartbroken,” the composer Tassos Ioannidis told Neos Kosmos. “We have lost a great musician, a highly sensitive music teacher who leaves behind a huge body of work in Australia and Europe. He was still a very kind, good-natured, truly cultured man.”

“My first orchestral concert, which I conducted, was shared with Spiros Rantos in December 1988,” added Cultural Infusion’s CEO Peter Mousaferiadis on Facebook. “I fondly remember him as someone who was generous in prosperity. Spiros was a wonderful violinist and music director, who created a legacy of musicians that will forever continue his spirit.”

Our condolences to Mr. Rantos' family, friends, students, and colleagues.