An idiomatic and personal voice in contemporary art music, composer Yiorgos Vassilandonakis draws upon a palette of well assimilated influences, ranging from the avant-garde, to spectralism and electronics, echoing the music of his homeland and jazz. Transcending stylistic boundaries, his music is driven by a strong dramatic and formal sense. His oeuvre, emotionally engaging and cerebral at the same time, reveals a mastery of timbre, sonority, applications of resonance models to instrumental forces and architectural designs in temporal space, as well as a perpetual research in sound itself as a physical entity.

Currently a Lecturer in Composition & Music Theory at the University of California, Berkeley, Yiorgos Vassilandonakis holds MA and Ph.D. degrees in Composition from Berkeley, as well as a Bachelor of Arts, summa cum laude from UCLA, and a degree in music theory from the Hellenic Conservatory in Athens. He has also studied in Paris with Philippe Leroux, at the École Nationale de Musique et de Danse, Erik Satie, as the recipient of the George Ladd Prix de Paris .

After his early musical studies in classical guitar, music theory and composition in his native Greece, Yiorgos moved to California in 1989, initially to study jazz and recording engineering, and became an American citizen in 1995. Following a successful career as a film composer and arranger in the Hollywood independent movie scene in the early and mid 90's, with credits as a producer and recording engineer in several recordings of diverse genres, he decided to concentrate exclusively on contemporary music, and returned to complete his academic education in order to actively pursue an academic career.

An active composer with a successful career in both the United States and Europe, Yiorgos Vassilandonakis has a diverse portfolio of music for all genres, including vocal, instrumental, choral, orchestral, and electronic, as well as opera, and several film, TV and theatre scores. Yiorgos’ music has been commissioned and performed by among others by the National Opera of Greece, the Athens Camerata, the Alexander S. Onassis Foundation, ALEA III, the Meridian Arts Ensemble and the French Ministry of Culture, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, Ensemble Cairn, and featured at the Aspen, Ernest Bloch, Domaine Forget, Wellesley Composers Conference and Music 04' Music Festivals, as well as at the Patras Contemporary Music Days Festival, where he won 1st Prize. Additional awards include 1st Prize at the Composition Competition of the Mediterranean Music Centre, the Eisner Prize in Music, the Nicola di Lorenzo Prize, the Hellenic Composers Union award, the Henry Mancini award for his film work, an AMC composer assistance grant, two SCION/ASCAP region VIII distinctions, as well as a composer residencies at Cité des Arts, Yaddo, and I-Park. He is the composer-in-residence with the Worn Chamber Ensemble in San Francisco, and has also taught at the Centre de Création Musicale, Iannis Xenakis.  His principal teachers include: Philippe Leroux, Edmund Campion, John Thow, Cindy Cox, Richard Felciano, Jorge Liderman, Paul Chihara, Paul Reale, Ian Krouse, Roger Bourland & David Lefkowitz, film music with Jerry Goldsmith, and conducting with David Milnes.