New York City-based, JUNO-nominated composer Haralabos [Harry] Stafylakis (b. 1982) hails from Montreal, Canada. "Dreamy yet rhythmic" (NY Times), with a “terrible luminosity” and “ferociously expressive” (Times Colonist), his concert music is “an amalgamation of the classical music tradition and the soul and grime of heavy metal” (I Care If You Listen). With an intimate background in progressive metal and traditional Greek music, Stafylakis has developed a unique conception of musical temporality and rhythm, infusing his compositions with a propulsive vitality that “favors doomsday chords and jackhammer rhythms” (The New Yorker).
His works have been performed by orchestras including the Toronto, Vancouver, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Ottawa, Regina, Québec, Victoria, PEI, Spokane, Stamford, Longueuil, FSU, and Greek Youth Symphony Orchestras, Norwegian Radio Orchestra, American Composers Orchestra, Orchestre Classique de Montréal, Orchestre Philharmonique du Québec, and Israel Chamber Orchestra. Between 2016–2026, Stafylakis served as Composer-in-Residence of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra and Curator of its annual Winnipeg New Music Festival.
He has collaborated with artists and ensembles including Dame Evelyn Glennie, Rachel Barton Pine, Roomful of Teeth, JACK Quartet, Animals As Leaders, Bent Knee, Decoda Ensemble, ShoutHouse, Raphael Weinroth-Browne, Contemporaneous, Vicky Chow, Jenny Lin, Hard Rubber Orchestra, Alexandre Da Costa, and Philippe Sly, among others.
His works have been featured at venues and festivals around the world, including Carnegie Hall and the NY Philharmonic Biennial. In 2018–19 he collaborated with progressive metal pioneers Animals As Leaders on the symphonic adaptation of their music for metal band & orchestra. Hard Rubber Orchestra’s 2022 album Iguana earned Stafylakis a JUNO nomination for his metal–big band fusion composition Source Code, featuring the composer on guitars. CC Duo & collectif9’s 2025 album Re/String earned Stafylakis a third JUNO nomination for his double guitar concerto To wake and find the world still burning.
Stafylakis’s 2023 album Calibrating Friction (New Amsterdam Records) has garnered recognition from progressive metal/rock and classical media alike for its deeply integrated fusion of metal and classical idioms, and was nominated for the 2024 JUNO Awards’ Instrumental Album of the Year. Produced in collaboration with Adam Pietrykowski (Van Tilburg), it features an all-star roster of musicians including guitarist Javier Reyes (Mestís, Animals as Leaders), cellist Raphael Weinroth-Browne (Leprous), pianist Vicky Chow (Band On A Can All-Stars), and violinist/violist Fung Chern Hwei (Seven)Suns), among others. It has been called “an album of the year candidate” (Avant Music News), “a genuinely perfect album. A masterpiece” (Bearded Gentlemen Music), and a “style [that] can change the course of prog metal and perhaps music itself” (The Progressive Subway).
In fall 2026, Stafylakis releases the collaborative prog metal & chamber music EP dontwaitforme with vocalist-composer Courtney Swain, featuring members of experimental rock band Bent Knee and genre-fluid ensemble ShoutHouse.
Other recent and upcoming recordings featuring his music include albums by the Norwegian Radio Orchestra & Miguel Harth-Bedoya (Naxos), Jenny Lin (Sono Luminus), the Cicchillitti-Cowan Duo (Analekta), collectif9 (Leaf Music), SHHH!! Ensemble (Leaf Music), Patrick Kearney (Contrastes), and the Hard Rubber Orchestra (Redshift).
His music has been recognized with the Charles Ives Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, ASCAP’s Leonard Bernstein Award, SOCAN’s Classical Composer of the Year Award, four SOCAN Foundation Awards for Young Composers, and grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, FACTOR, SSHRC, and New Music USA. He has served on the board of directors of GroundSwell (Winnipeg), is an Associate Composer of the Canadian Music Centre, and a founding member of the NYC composer collective ICEBERG New Music and faculty member of its ICEBERG Institute.
Stafylakis holds degrees from McGill University and The Graduate Center, City University of New York.
Stafylakis teaches composition & production at SUNY Purchase in New York, serves on the faculty of the ICEBERG Institute in Orlando, Florida.
