Nana sings so long to Halifax
Mouskouri wants to leave stage while voice still in good shape
By ELISSA BARNARD Arts Reporter
Nana Mouskouri jokes that she probably knows Canada better than many Canadians.
The Greek singing legend, on her final tour of Canada at the age of 72, can rattle off the name of many a small Canuck town where she’s performed: "I have been in Moosejaw and Sept Iles, Rimouski and Lethbridge."
No matter the size of the town, she says, "it was the stage that was important."
While Mouskouri is saying good-bye to her fans on The Farewell Tour she won’t be saying goodbye to Canada. Her first grandchild is going to be Canadian. Mouskouri’s son, Nicolas, and his wife are expecting their first child at the end of the year, and Mouskouri is keen to be a grannie.
"Absolutely," she says from Athens, where her house is close by the sea. Her 35-year-old daughter Helene (Lenou) Mouskouri has recorded two albums and lives in France and Germany.
Last in Halifax in 2003, Mouskouri’s concert on Friday at the Halifax Metro Centre will definitely be her last here as the singer wraps up 47 years of being on the road.
She wants to leave while her voice is still in good shape. "I don’t want to leave an impression that I am not as good as always."
She is also eager to get off the road. "I decided to do this last tour to have a chance to be in places I’ve been in for so many years and to say thank you very much. The audience has been so important.
"I was in Halifax the first time 30 years ago and I came back four or five times. There are places that have meant a lot to me and it is important to me to go there.
"I remember when I first came to the Maritimes to sing at a stadium they were so excited, the people. It leaves you with memories of the audience. I always had a special relationship with the audience."
Instead of having huge production numbers with dancers and special effects, "it’s much more intimate and friendly and my music has a sense of a message of connection, of understanding, of love, sharing, of feeling peace, of dignity, for justice. They are symbols that mean a lot to people — and me as well— that we shared."
Her songs are positive and Mouskouri is a positive person even though her job since 1993 as a UNICEF ambassador has given her a clear picture of human suffering. "What you see most of the time, of course, is desperation but there is also hope. There is always hope things will get better.
"You must have hope, you can’t sit back. There is hope as long as you work."
Today Mouskouri has homes in Athens, Paris, London and Germany. She has recorded over 1,500 songs in a dozen languages with over 300 million records sold. Apart from intense international travel throughout Asia, Europe, North America and South America, she also hosted her own TV series from 1968 to 1981 and was Greek deputy to the European parliament from 1994 to 1999.
She was born Ioanna (Nana is her nickname) in Crete and moved at the age of three to Athens, where her father, a movie projectionist, was a resistance fighter during the Second World War.
She started taking classical voice lessons when she was 12 but was later kicked out of the Athens Conservatory when it was discovered she’d been singing with a jazz group at night. She began singing jazz in nightclubs, and won several song contests that launched her international career.
Mouskouri likes to read books in their original language and sings fluently in six languages, which she calls her babies — German, Italian, Greek, English, French and Spanish. "I know them very well so I can sing with my heart.
"A French song is more intellectual. A Greek song is more earthy. I love to sing in Spanish, you have so much emotion.
"I remember Quincy Jones when I did my first recording in 1962 he said ‘you are such a good singer in your own language you can really be great in any language.’ If you really have an identity in one language you’re interested to learn the others and be as good with them."
One of Mouskouri’s vocal cords is thicker than the other and that has meant she needed to train harder to get the cords to work together. "They need now still a lot of work.
"It was also wonderful because I got to know how to work the mouth and to protect them and this gives a certain colour to my voice which is not usual.
"The low notes are more husky and when I go up with it it’s clear. It’s wonderful for me at the age I am my voice has changed in colour but I haven’t lost any of the height of the range and I still sing on the same keys as when I was 25 or 30 years old."
Mouskouri, who initially wore her distinctive black-rimmed glasses as "protection" but now can’t imagine life without them, doesn’t have much time to relax but whenever she does, "I do some reading, I draw a little bit, I listen to music, I like to watch movies as well, but I don’t have very much time to relax. What I like most is to swim."
She always stays if possible at hotels with swimming pools. "It’s important for my respiration to do a little bit of exercise. It relaxes me being in the water. It’s the best relaxation you can have being in the water and to watch the water. If you watch the sea it’s very relaxing."
Mouskouri’s The Farewell Tour: One last song from Nana with love . . . is at the Halifax Metro Centre on Friday, 8 p.m. Tickets are $45.50 and $55.50 (tax included; service charge extra). Call the Ticket Atlantic box office at 451-1221, visit participating Atlantic Superstores or go online at www.ticketatlantic.com.
( ebarnard@herald.ca)
’I do some reading, I draw a little bit, I listen to music, I like to watch movies as well, but I don’t have very much time to relax. What I like most is to swim.’
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