Michalis Paraskakis is a composer and performer from Athens and The Hague. Initially he studied and worked as a graphic designer, while studying accordion and piano. After lessons with Costas Varotsis, he shifted entirely to music and moved to the Netherlands to study composition at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague. His teachers were Yannis Kyriakides, Martijn Padding, Cornelis de Bondt and Diderik Wagenaar. At the same conservatory he studied singing, while taking lessons in medieval and renaissance polyphony by Rebecca Stewart. He has taken masterclasses by Franck Bedrossian, Christian Wolff, Klaus Lang, Mark Andre, Dimitri Papageorgiou and Orestis Toufektsis.

He has won the impuls composition competition where his piece “Kāma” premiered in 2017. He has collaborated with musicians such as Klangforum Wien, ASKO|Schönberg Ensemble, Ensemble dissonArt, Nieuw Ensemble, Momenta Quartet, Slagwerk Den Haag, Ensemble KLANG, Enno Poppe, Ilan Volkoc, Bas Wiegers, Ben Roidl-Ward, Katerina Konstantourou, Theodore Antoniou, Yorgos Ziavras, Konstantinos Terzakis and many more. His music has been performed in venues and festivals like Muziekgebouw aan ‘t Ij Amsterdam [NL], MATA Festival New York [US], impuls Festival [AU], Onassis Stegi [GR], Greek National Opera [GR], Athens & Epidaurus Festival [GR], REACTOR Vienna [AU], Korzo Theatre [NL] Tehran International Electronic Music Festival [IR] etc. 

His first opera Strella, was commissioned and staged for two seasons by the Greek National Opera in 2023. His increasing interest for music theatre manifestated both in his performances of works by J. Christou’s Anaparastasis I, Karyn Banquet’s Ensuing, I. Xenakis Kassandra, G Aperghis’ Recitations, as well as his later and upcoming music-theatre works such as Dépaysement, 30 Nails, Field Guide and The woman that forgot how to speak. The latter is the subject of his PhD, guided by Franck Bedrossian (University of Music and Performing Arts, Graz) and Dimitri Papageorgiou (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki). 

He is the founder and artistic director of the new music ensemble TETTTIX in Athens, which already shapes an important presence in the music scene of Greece, staging music theatre or interdisciplinary performances.