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Ioanna "Nana" Mouskouri ( el, Ιωάννα "Νάνα" Μούσχουρη ) (born 13 October 1934) is a Greek singer. Over the span of her career, she has released over 200 albums in at least twelve languages, including
Greek
Greek may refer to:
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Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
,
French,
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
,
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
** Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
,
Dutch
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* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People E ...
,
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Portu ...
,
Italian
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* Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries
** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom
** Italian language, a Romance language
*** Regional Ita ...
,
Japanese
Japanese may refer to:
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* Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan
* Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture
** Japanese diaspor ...
,
Spanish
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* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
,
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
,
Welsh
Welsh may refer to:
Related to Wales
* Welsh, referring or related to Wales
* Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales
* Welsh people
People
* Welsh (surname)
* Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peop ...
,
Mandarin Chinese
Mandarin (; ) is a group of Chinese (Sinitic) dialects that are natively spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of the phonology of Standard Chinese, the official language ...
and
Corsican.
Mouskouri became well known throughout Europe for the song "The White Rose of Athens", recorded first in German as "Weiße Rosen aus Athen" as an adaptation of her Greek song "" (''San sfyríxeis tris forés'', "When you whistle three times"). It became her first record to sell over one million copies.
Later in 1963, she represented
Luxembourg
Luxembourg ( ; lb, Lëtzebuerg ; french: link=no, Luxembourg; german: link=no, Luxemburg), officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, ; french: link=no, Grand-Duché de Luxembourg ; german: link=no, Großherzogtum Luxemburg is a small lan ...
at the
Eurovision Song Contest with the song "
À force de prier". Her friendship with the composer
Michel Legrand
Michel Jean Legrand (; 24 February 1932 – 26 January 2019) was a French musical composer, arranger, conductor, and jazz pianist. Legrand was a prolific composer, having written over 200 film and television scores, in addition to many son ...
led to the recording by Mouskouri of the theme song of the Oscar-nominated film ''
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
''The Umbrellas of Cherbourg'' (french: Les Parapluies de Cherbourg) is a 1964 musical romantic drama film written and directed by Jacques Demy, with music and lyrics by Michel Legrand. Catherine Deneuve and Nino Castelnuovo star as two young ...
''. From 1968 to 1976, she hosted her own TV show produced by
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
, ''Presenting Nana Mouskouri''. Her popularity as a multilingual television personality and distinctive image, owing to the then unusual signature black-rimmed glasses, turned Mouskouri into an international star.
"
Je chante avec toi Liberté", recorded in 1981, is perhaps her biggest hit to date, performed in at least five languages – French, English as "Song for Liberty", German as "Lied der Freiheit", Spanish as "Libertad" and Portuguese as "Liberdade". "
Only Love", a song recorded in 1985 as the theme song of TV series ''
Mistral's Daughter
''Mistral's Daughter'' is a 1984 American television miniseries, adapted from Judith Krantz's 1982 bonkbuster novel of the same name.
Plot summary
In 1925, Jewish artist’s model Maggy Lunel (Stefanie Powers) arrives in Paris and overcomes her ...
'', gained worldwide popularity along with its other versions in French (as "L'Amour en Héritage"), Italian (as "Come un'eredità"), Spanish (as "La dicha del amor"), and German (as "Aber die Liebe bleibt"). It became her only UK hit single when it reached number two in February 1986.
Mouskouri became a spokesperson for
UNICEF
UNICEF (), originally called the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund in full, now officially United Nations Children's Fund, is an agency of the United Nations responsible for providing humanitarian and developmental aid to ...
in 1993 and was elected to the
European Parliament
The European Parliament (EP) is one of the legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and informally as the Council of Ministers), it adopts ...
as a Greek deputy from 1994 to 1999.
In 2015 she was awarded the
Echo Music Prize
Echo Music Prize (stylised as ECHO, ) was an accolade by the , an association of recording companies of Germany to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry. The first ECHO Awards ceremony was held in 1992, and it was set up to hono ...
for Outstanding achievements by the German music association Deutsche Phono-Akademie.
Early years
Nana Mouskouri's family lived in
Chania, Crete
Chania ( el, Χανιά ; vec, La Canea), also spelled Hania, is a city in Greece and the capital of the Chania (regional unit), Chania regional unit. It lies along the north west coast of the island Crete, about west of Rethymno and west ...
, where her father, Constantine, worked as a film projectionist in a local cinema; her mother, Alice, worked in the same cinema as an
usherette. When Mouskouri was three, her family moved to
Athens
Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...
.
Mouskouri's family sent her and her older sister Eugenía (Jenny) to the
Athens Conservatoire. Although Mouskouri had displayed exceptional musical talent from age six, Jenny initially appeared to be the more gifted sibling. Financially unable to support both girls' studies, the parents asked their tutor which one should continue. The sister conceded that Jenny had the better voice, but Nana was the one with the true inner need to sing. Mouskouri has said that a medical examination revealed she only has one functioning
vocal cord
In humans, vocal cords, also known as vocal folds or voice reeds, are folds of throat tissues that are key in creating sounds through vocalization. The size of vocal cords affects the pitch of voice. Open when breathing and vibrating for speec ...
and this could well account for her remarkable singing voice (in her younger years ranging from a husky, dark
alto, which she later dropped, to a ringing
coloratura mezzo), as opposed to her breathy, raspy speaking voice.
Mouskouri's early childhood was marked by the German
Nazi occupation of Greece. Her father became part of the anti-Nazi resistance movement in Athens. Mouskouri began singing lessons at age 12. As a child, she listened to radio broadcasts of singers including
Frank Sinatra,
Ella Fitzgerald
Ella Jane Fitzgerald (April 25, 1917June 15, 1996) was an American jazz singer, sometimes referred to as the "First Lady of Song", "Queen of Jazz", and "Lady Ella". She was noted for her purity of tone, impeccable diction, phrasing, timing, in ...
,
Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday (born Eleanora Fagan; April 7, 1915 – July 17, 1959) was an American jazz and swing music singer. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and music partner, Lester Young, Holiday had an innovative influence on jazz music and pop s ...
, and
Édith Piaf
Édith Piaf (, , ; born Édith Giovanna Gassion, ; December 19, 1915– October 10, 1963) was a French singer, lyricist and actress. Noted as France's national chanteuse, she was one of the country's most widely known international stars.
Pia ...
.
In 1950, she was accepted at the Conservatoire. She studied classical music with an emphasis on singing
opera
Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a libr ...
. After eight years at the Conservatoire, Mouskouri was encouraged by her friends to experiment with
jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...
music. She began singing with her friends' jazz group at night. However, when Mouskouri's Conservatory professor found out about Mouskouri's involvement with a genre of music that was not in keeping with her classical studies, he prevented her from sitting for her end-of-year exams. During an episode of ''Joanna Lumley's Greek Odyssey'', shown on the UK ITV channel in the autumn of 2011, Mouskouri told the actress
Joanna Lumley
Dame Joanna Lamond Lumley (born 1 May 1946) is an English actress, presenter, former model, author, television producer, and activist. She has won two BAFTA TV Awards for her role as Patsy Stone in the BBC sitcom ''Absolutely Fabulous'' (1992 ...
how she had been scheduled to sing at the
amphitheatre at Epidauros with other students of the Conservatoire, when upon arrival at the amphitheatre word came through from the Conservatoire in Athens that she had just been barred from participating in the performance there owing to her involvement in light music. Mouskouri subsequently left the Conservatoire and began performing at the Zaki club in Athens.
She began singing jazz in nightclubs with a bias towards 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
Manos may refer to:
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* ''The Hands'' (Spanish: ''Las manos''), a 2006 Argentinean-Italian film
* '' Manos: The Hands of Fate'', 1966 horror film
Music
* Manos (band), German Black metal band
* ''Manos'' (album), by The Spinanes
Other use ...
. Hadjidakis was impressed by Nana's voice and offered to write songs for her. In 1959 Mouskouri performed Hadjidakis' "Κάπου υπάρχει η αγάπη μου" (''Kápou ipárchi i agápi mou'', "Somewhere my love exists"; co-written with poet
Nikos Gatsos
Nikos Gatsos ( el, Νίκος Γκάτσος; 8 December 1911 – 12 May 1992) was a Greek poet, translator and lyricist.
Biography
Nikos Gatsos was born in 1911 in Asea in Arcadia, a district of the Peloponnese, where he finished primary sch ...
) at the inaugural
Greek Song Festival
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
. The song won first prize, and Mouskouri began to be noticed.
At the 1960 Greek Song Festival, she performed two more Hadjidakis compositions, "Τιμωρία" (''Timōría'', "Punishment") and "Κυπαρισσάκι" (''Kyparissáki'', "Little cypress"). Both these songs tied for first prize. Mouskouri performed
Kostas Yannidis' composition, "Ξύπνα αγάπη μου" (''Xýpna agápi mou'', "Wake up, my love"), at the
Mediterranean Song Festival
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the eas ...
, held in
Barcelona
Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...
that year. The song won first prize, and she went on to sign a recording contract with
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...
-based
Philips-Fontana.
In 1961, Mouskouri performed the soundtrack of a
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
** Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
documentary about Greece. This resulted in the German-language single ''Weiße Rosen aus Athen'' ("White Roses from Athens"). The song was originally adapted by Hadjidakis from a folk melody. It became a success, selling over a million copies in Germany. The song was later translated into several languages and it went on to become one of Mouskouri's signature tunes.
Family life
Mouskouri has been married twice: first at age 25, to Yorgos (George) Petsilas, a guitarist in her backing band (the trio "The Athenians") and the first man she had kissed. They had two children (Nicolas Petsilas in 1968 and Hélène (Lénou) Petsilas in 1970) but divorced when Mouskouri was 39.
Not long after that, she started a relationship with her record producer André Chapelle, but they did not marry then because she "didn't want to bring another father into the family" and divorce was against her conservative upbringing.
They eventually married on January 13, 2003, and live primarily in Switzerland.
Life outside Greece
In 1960, Mouskouri moved to Paris. She performed Luxembourg's entry in the
Eurovision Song Contest 1963
The Eurovision Song Contest 1963 was the eighth edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest and took place in London, United Kingdom. It was organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and host broadcaster British Broadcasting Corporat ...
, "
À force de prier". Although the song achieved only eighth place in the contest, it achieved commercial success, and helped win her the prestigious
Grand Prix du Disque
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in France. Mouskouri soon attracted the attention of French composer
Michel Legrand
Michel Jean Legrand (; 24 February 1932 – 26 January 2019) was a French musical composer, arranger, conductor, and jazz pianist. Legrand was a prolific composer, having written over 200 film and television scores, in addition to many son ...
, who composed two songs which became major French hits for her: "
Les Parapluies de Cherbourg
''The Umbrellas of Cherbourg'' (french: Les Parapluies de Cherbourg) is a 1964 musical romantic drama film written and directed by Jacques Demy, with music and lyrics by Michel Legrand. Catherine Deneuve and Nino Castelnuovo star as two young ...
" (1964) and an arrangement of
Katherine K. Davis's "Carol of the Drum", "L'Enfant au Tambour" (1965).
In 1962, she met
Quincy Jones
Quincy Delight Jones Jr. (born March 14, 1933) is an American record producer, musician, songwriter, composer, arranger, and film and television producer. His career spans 70 years in the entertainment industry with a record of 80 Grammy Award n ...
, who persuaded her to travel to
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
to record an album of American jazz titled ''The Girl from Greece Sings''. Following that she scored another hit in the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
with the song "My Colouring Book" (later included in her 1973 album ''Songs from her TV series''). In 1965, she recorded her second English-language album to be released in the United States, entitled ''Nana Sings''. American singer
Harry Belafonte
Harry Belafonte (born Harold George Bellanfanti Jr.; March 1, 1927) is an American singer, activist, and actor. As arguably the most successful Jamaican-American pop star, he popularized the Trinbagonian Caribbean musical style with an interna ...
heard and liked the album. Belafonte brought Mouskouri on tour with him through 1966. They teamed for a duo album entitled ''An Evening With Belafonte/Mouskouri''. During this tour, Belafonte suggested that Mouskouri remove her signature black-rimmed
glasses
Glasses, also known as eyeglasses or spectacles, are vision eyewear, with lenses (clear or tinted) mounted in a frame that holds them in front of a person's eyes, typically utilizing a bridge over the nose and hinged arms (known as temples ...
when on stage. She was so unhappy with the request that she wanted to quit the show after only two days. Finally, Belafonte relented and respected her wish to perform while wearing glasses.
On September 15, 1965, Mouskouri appeared for the first time on American television with Harry Belafonte on the ''
Danny Kaye Show
''The Danny Kaye Show'' was an American variety show, hosted by the stage and screen star Danny Kaye, which aired on Wednesday nights from September 25, 1963, to June 7, 1967, on the CBS television network. Directed by Robert Scheerer, it premier ...
''. While on the show Mouskouri performed "Telalima" followed by "Σήκω χόρεψε κουκλί μου" (''Siko horepse koukli mou'') accompanied by
Harry Belafonte
Harry Belafonte (born Harold George Bellanfanti Jr.; March 1, 1927) is an American singer, activist, and actor. As arguably the most successful Jamaican-American pop star, he popularized the Trinbagonian Caribbean musical style with an interna ...
and
Danny Kaye.
Mouskouri's 1967 French album ''Le Jour où la colombe'' raised her to super-stardom in France. This album featured many of her French songs, "Au cœur de septembre", "Adieu Angélina", "Robe bleue, robe blanche" and the French pop classic "
Le Temps des cerises". Mouskouri made her first appearance at Paris' legendary
Olympia concert theatre the same year, singing French pop, Greek folk, and Hadjidakis numbers.
These successes across Europe and elsewhere impressed
Yvonne Littlewood
Yvonne Mary Pearl Littlewood MBE (born July 1927) is a former British television director and producer. Born in Maidstone, Kent, her career extended over three decades. As a child, she briefly moved to King's Lynn, Norfolk, before going to ...
, the BBC producer who had first met Mouskouri at the 1963 Eurovision Song Contest in London. Following several successful guest appearances on British TV after her Eurovision performance, the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
then invited Mouskouri and her backing group, the Athenians, to start hosting a TV series called ''Presenting… Nana Mouskouri'' from 1968 onwards. A typical episode of her series would contain contemporary British, American and French pop and folk music, popular classical pieces, and the Greek songs which had originally made her famous. The shows also featured European and