Caridis was born in the
Free City of Danzig (Gdańsk). His mother was a Danziger of German ethnicity, his father was a
Greek tobacco merchant from
Smyrna. His family moved to
Weimar Germany and he was raised in
Dresden, but his family moved to Greece in 1938, sensing that war was imminent. According to the biography Caridis was thus the only member of his Dresden school class to survive
World War II. After the war, he studied with
Hans Swarowsky in
Vienna. His career spanned
opera in
Cologne,
Graz and
Vienna. He has also conducted the
Philharmonia Hungarica, the
Oslo Philharmonic and the
Tonkünstlerorchester. He was awarded the
Béla Bartók medal in 1981 for his contribution in fomenting the appeal of the composer's work. He died in
Athens from a stroke he sustained while he was rehearsing with the
Ellinikí Radiofonía Tileórasi Greek National Orchestra. ==References==