His double bass studies were at the Manhattan School of Music and The Juilliard School with David Walter and Orin Orien. He studied composition with Giampaolo Bracali and Ludmila Ulehla. His catalogue includes 7 operas, songs in English, German, and Greek, chamber music for diverse instruments, works for organ and/or choir, madrigals, various works featuring the guitar, children pieces, piano works, symphonic music, concerto, and plays with music. His Operas have been produced by Encompass Music theatre, Manhattan Chamber Orchestra, neXus Arts, and the Lucy Moses School for Music and Dance.

Kioulaphides has received commissions from the New York Classical guitar Society, Trinity Lutheran and St. Michael Episcopal Church, the Diller-Quaile School, and numerous individual performers. He has received international performances in Argentina, Romania, Bolivia and Spain and has been on the Composition/Theory faculty at the Brooklyn Conservatory since 1994 and at the Lucy Moses School for Music and Dance since 1996. He has received one of ASCAP零 Special Awards every year since 1993.

A while back, reminiscing with two former fellow-students about our respective teachers, one of them said fondly: "My teacher showed me the niftiest fingerings!" The other one added enthusiastically, "Mine showed me the most amazing bowings!" Looking around me and sensing that somehow it was expected from me to add something to this collective reverie, I said spontaneously, almost in the naive manner that my 5-year-old daughter talks of her favorite songs: "My teacher taught me to make music and be happy about it!" Not a mean feat, to have instilled in those few, precious conservatory years a love that would last a lifetime - and carry over across generations... I have always taken great pride and joy in my training, and more so for having spent so many of my conservatory hours in the company of such an inspiring and illuminating a musician as David Walter. In Jubilo is simply that: a joyous commemoration of the happy times David and I shared