Nana Mouskouri - Athina (Athens)

iatedmen
08 January 2010

Athina (Athens)
Music: Manos Hadjidakis, Lyrics: Nikos Gatsos
Nana Mouskouri (Greek: Nάνα Μούσχουρη), born as Ioanna Mouskouri (Greek: Ιωάννα Μούσχουρη) on October 13, 1934, in Chania, Crete, Greece, is a singer who is confirmed to have sold over 300 million records worldwide in a career spanning over five decades, making her the world's best-selling female recording artist. She was known as Nana to her friends and family as a child. (Note that in Greek her surname is pronounced with the stress on the first syllable rather than the second.) She has recorded in many different languages, including Greek, French, English, German, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, and Welsh.
Mouskouri's family lived in Chania, Crete, where her father, Constantine, worked as a film projectionist in a local cinema. Her mother, Alice also worked in the same local cinema as an usherette. When Mouskouri was three, her father moved the family to Athens. Mouskouri's family worked extremely hard in order to send Nana and her elder sister, Jenny, to the prestigious Athens Conservatoire. Mouskouri had displayed exceptional musical talent from the age of 6. However, her sister, Jenny, initially appeared to be the more gifted of the two. In fact, due to a congenital deformity, Mouskouri has only one functioning vocal cord. This unusual condition accounts for her unique voice, both speaking and singing.[
Mouskouri's childhood was stamped by the Nazi occupation of Greece. Her father became part of the anti-Nazi resistance movement in Athens. Mouskouri began singing lessons at age 12. Despite the flaw in her vocal cords, Mouskouri took singing lessons regularly. As a child, she listened to radio broadcasts of singers such as Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, and Édith Piaf.
In 1950, she was accepted at the Conservatoire. She studied classical music with an emphasis on singing opera. After eight years at the Conservatoire, Mouskouri was encouraged by her friends to experiment with jazz music. She soon began singing with her friends' jazz group at night and they even managed to get a radio slot. However, when Mouskouri's Conservatory professor found out about Mouskouri's involvement with a genre of music that he considered to be absolutely worthless, he flew into a fury and prevented her from sitting for her end-of-year exams. Mouskouri left the Conservatoire and began performing at the Zaki club in Athens.
She began singing jazz in nightclubs with a bias on Ella Fitzgerald repertoire. In 1957, she recorded her first song, Fascination, in both Greek and English for Odeon/EMI Greece. By 1958 while still performing at the Zaki, she met Greek composer Manos Hadjidakis. Hadjidakis was immensely impressed by Nanas unique voice and immediately offered to write songs for her. In 1959 Mouskouri performed Hadjidakis' Kapou Iparchi I Agapi Mou (co-written with poet Nikos Gatsos) at the inaugural Greek Song Festival. The song won first prize, and Mouskouri began to be noticed.
At the 1960 Greek Song Festival, she performed two more Hadjidakis compositions, Timoria and Kiparissaki. Both these songs tied for first prize. Mouskouri performed Kostas Yannidis' composition, Xypna Agapi Mou, at the Mediterranean Song Festival, held in Barcelona that year. The song won first prize, and she went on to sign a recording contract with Paris-based Philips-Fontana.
In 1961, Mouskouri performed the soundtrack of a German documentary about Greece. This resulted in the German-language single Weiße Rosen aus Athen ("White Roses from Athens"). The song was originally adapted from a folk melody by Hadjidakis. It became an enormous hit, selling over a million copies in Germany. The song was later translated into several different languages and it went on to become one of Mouskouri's signature tunes.
Category: Music

Tags: Nana Mouskouri Athina (Athens) greek manos hadjidakis nikos gatsos ελληνικα νανα μουσχουρη μανος χατζιδακης νικος γκατσος