The Greek composer Eleftherios Veniadis, born in 1977, divides his time between Berlin and his home on the Greek island of Chios. After studying music theory and acting and first engagements in Greece, he moved to Germany in 2005. He studied composition at the University of the Arts in Berlin and the Music Academy “Carl Maria von Weber” in Dresden, followed by numerous scholarships and awards, for example the First Opera Award of the Neukölln Opera for Honolulu Vagamani (2012). Veniadis created further musical theatre projects such as Chemo Brother, composed in 2016 for the Deutsche Oper Berlin, as well as Fly, an adaptation of Aristophanes which had its world premiere at the Big Bang Festival in Athens in 2017. The artist is particularly active in the Chios Music Festival, which he co-founded and which is trying to send a cultural signal amidst the catastrophic refugee situation in Greece. Chios was also the venue of the world premiere of his opera The Mastix Opera in 2018, an homage to the island’s life elixir.