Greek​ Music Ensemble
Stelios Karaminas
Lead Vocalist / Guitar
Stelios Karaminas was born in Patra, but his origins are from the island of Samos. He grew up in Athens Greece.
At the age of 11 he started to learn guitar on his own. During his high school years he took classical guitar lessons and started to explore the music of many pop and rock groups of the time. Between 1979 and 1986 he studied Electrical Engineering in the National Polytechnic University of Athens but he also got involved with the music scene in Greece.
He worked in nightclubs, joined and played with various groups of different musical styles, participated in various recording sessions and concerts including a large tour all around Greece with singer Antonis Kalogiannis and composer Dimitris Lagios in 1983.
In 1989 he came to study Commercial Music Arranging at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts where he was also introduced to the Greek local music scene. That’s when he first met some of the present members of the music group orfeas.
In 1991 he earned his degree and went back to Greece where he worked full time as a music teacher, music copyist, jingle writer, arranger, composer and performer. He has worked with famous Greek composers like Manos Xatzidakis (Orchestra of the Colors), Yiannis Markopoulos, Xristos Leontis, Nikos Kypourgos and performed with the Orchestra of National Radio and TV (ERT).
In 1996 he performed as a guitarist and vocalist alongside world renown singer Marinella at the REX music hall in Athens and kept working with her until the end of 1998, while they toured all over Greece including her first big concerts at the Megaro of Music and at the Herodeio Theater in Athens.
After that he decided to return to his engineering roots and moved back to Boston, Massachusetts with his family. Since 1999 he has been a member of the local music band Orfeas and for the last three years has also been performing with the Greek Music Enseble. He is now a full time software developer at Epsilon data Management in Wakefield Massachusetts. Even though music is no longer his full time occupation, it still plays an integral role in his life.​