Eugenia Manolidou
Eugenia Karagiannidou (), better known as Eugenia Manolidou (Μανωλίδου) or Manolides, is a Greek classical composer, conductor, entertainment television presenter and is married to politician and Minister for Development and Investment of Greece Adonis Georgiadis. Personal life. Born on February 27, 1975 as Eugenia Karagiannidou in Athens, Greece. Eugenia married painter Theodore Manolides, in 1995. They separated in 2002 but Theodore denied to file the divorce for quite a while. Afterwards she lived with editor, New Democracy party Vice President and former Minister Adonis Georgiades. She has given birth to 4 children, 2 of which with Theodore (Alexandros, 1996  and Theodora, 1997) and 2 with Adonis, called Perseus (2005) and Alcaeus (2014). Eventually Eugenia and Adonis got married on June 22, 2009. Biography. Eugenia Manolidou started piano lessons at the age of 5 and she kept practising all along, though her goal has always been composing. During her childhood her father died. At some point she paused her piano studies in "Conservatory J.S. Bach", with Russian teacher "Alla Halapsis". After graduation from high school she began to study management but soon enough she pursued her dream overseas. In New York she managed to get accepted in the Juilliard School . She studied composition and orchestration with composer Daron Hagen as well as orchestral conducting with founder of the "New York Grand Opera Company", Vincent La Selva. At the same time she resumed advanced piano studies with soloist Julie Jordan. Four years later, in 1998, she returned to Europe for postgraduate studies with Belgian composer and conductor Robert Janssens at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels. TV career. Following her grand approval in 2008 Beijing Olympic Concert Eugenia Manolidou decided to start a TV career. She was originally supposed to participate either as a judge for the 1st season of The X  Factor (Greek TV series) or as the hostess of the legendary morning show "Πρωινός Καφές" i.e. "Morning Coffee". However the broadcasting channel ANT1 thought it would be more intriguing for her to be hostess of the Greek version of The Moment of Truth (U.S. game show) reality show. They turned to be right as "Moment of Truth" in 2009 made a huge impact on Greek audience and caused a lot of debate on how moral is for such programmes to be televised. As a matter of fact, political rivals of Eugenia's husband, Adonis Georgiades, took advantage of her media  inexperience aiming at her and Adonis' ethics. Consequently, the National Radio & Television Broadcasting Council after the end of 1st season, disallowed the show to carry on for a 2nd one. There is a major percentage of civilians criticizing her personality since then. In first semester of 2010 Eugenia came back participating in 2 shows. She was the female judge of "Ellada Eheis Talento (season 3) (Greece Got Talent)" along with male judges Ilias Psinakis and "Vangelis Perris". The host of the show was "Hristos Ferentinos". Her different point of view on what is considered to be a talent, resulted in  numerous arguments between the judges and heavy criticism from TV critics. In the end, it proved to be the most successful season of the show. At the same time, Eugenia competed in the "1st season of Dancing with the Stars (Greek TV series)" with pro-partner "Elias Ladas". The intriguing part there was that she had to compete with "Matthildi Maggira" who replaced in "Greece Got Talent". She performed remarkably well, gaining audience's interest. Eugenia and Elias eventually got eliminated in the semi-final (3rd place). There were rumors that she was denied final spot because she had already  signed for her next step with rival TV channel Mega Channel. After 5 seasons of "Dancing With The Stars" in Greece, Eugenia is still considered to be in top-5 overall contestants, with several guest appearances in the show. So, in second semester of 2010, Eugenia Manolidou presented the "1st season of cooking show MasterChef Greece" broadcast from Mega Channel, an adaptation of the original MasterChef (UK TV series) BBC show. The 3 judges were chefs Lefteris Lazarou, "Giannis Loukakos" and "Dimitris Skarmoutsos". Although many predicted failure, "MasterChef" proved to be the most successful cooking show ever in Greek TV. Anticipation  for next episode grew larger and larger and the Big Final on December 28, 2010 has been an audience's measurement milestone. ""Master Chef"" was declared contestant "Akis Petretzikis" and he remains unique since 2nd season of MasterChef Greece never ended. Eugenia's spontaneous reaction on winner announcement was never cut on editing and thus an urban slogan emerged: "Θα καταρρεύσω" i.e. "I am about to collapse". She opted not to present either Junior version or 2nd season despite proposals for both. In 2011, Eugenia returned to ""ANT1" for the "4th season of Greece Got Talent", but due to financial  reasons, the show was postponed for the next year. Meanwhile, she accepted to present "Dancing With the Stars Daily", a programme based upon from BBC that followed action of "2nd season of Dancing with the Stars (Greek TV series)". "DWTS Daily" eventually embedded in morning infotainment programme of ANT1. In 2012, "Ellada Eheis Talento (season 4)" was finally aired and Eugenia kept her position as the female judge. Unlike her, Ilias Psinakis could not return and "Haris Hristopoulos" took his place. There were not any arguments except some nasty contestants and everyone seemed to enjoy it. It was the final  edition of the show till now as well as Eugenia's most recent job on TV.