Stavros Xarchakos,
Greek
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 ...
: Σταύρος Ξαρχάκος (born 14 March 1939) is a Greek
composer
A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music.
Etymology and Defi ...
and
conductor.
Biography
Stavros Xarchakos was born in
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 ...
, where he studied at the
Athens Conservatoire. He has family origins from the
Mani Peninsula
The Mani Peninsula ( el, Μάνη, Mánē), also long known by its medieval name Maina or Maïna (Μαΐνη), is a geographical and cultural region in Southern Greece that is home to the Maniots (Mανιάτες, ''Maniátes'' in Greek), who cla ...
. He emerged in the Greek music scene around 1963, composing music for the theatre and cinema. Among his collaborators was lyricist
Lefteris Papadopoulos
Lefteris (Eleftherios) Papadopoulos ( el, Λευτέρης Παπαδόπουλος) is a Greek lyricist, writer and journalist.
Lefteris Papadopoulos was born in Athens, Greece on 14 November 1935. He is the son of Greek refugees, with a fath ...
and singer
Nikos Xylouris
Nikos Xylouris ( el, Νίκος Ξυλούρης, 7 July 1936 – 8 February 1980), Cretan nickname: Psaronikos ( el, Ψαρονίκος), was a Greek singer, Cretan Lyra player and composer, who was and remains to this day among the most renow ...
.
In 1967 he went to
Paris
Paris () is the capital and 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), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
to study with
Nadia Boulanger
Juliette Nadia Boulanger (; 16 September 188722 October 1979) was a French music teacher and conductor. She taught many of the leading composers and musicians of the 20th century, and also performed occasionally as a pianist and organist.
From a ...
. He stayed in Paris for four years, and then studied with
David Diamond at the
Juilliard School of Music
The Juilliard School ( ) is a private performing arts conservatory in New York City. Established in 1905, the school trains about 850 undergraduate and graduate students in dance, drama, and music. It is widely regarded as one of the most elit ...
in New York. He served as director of the National Orchestra of Greek Music.
He was later involved in politics and was elected Member of the Greek Parliament twice, before becoming a
Member of the European Parliament
A Member of the European Parliament (MEP) is a person who has been elected to serve as a popular representative in the European Parliament.
When the European Parliament (then known as the Common Assembly of the ECSC) first met in 1952, its ...
(MEP) from 2000 to 2004. He was again a candidate for the European Parliament with
New Democracy
New Democracy, or the New Democratic Revolution, is a concept based on Mao Zedong's Bloc of Four Social Classes theory in Chinese Communist Revolution, post-revolutionary China which argued originally that democracy in China would take a path ...
, in the elections of 25 May 2014, but was not elected.
Music
While he mainly composed in the style of Greek popular music,
Laïka, Xarchakos also composed in the classical music genre.
His music has been recorded to 42 albums, has been used in 21 movies and for 15 TV productions. Internationally he is known as the composer for the ''
Rembetiko
Rebetiko ( el, ρεμπέτικο, ), plural rebetika ( ), occasionally transliterated as rembetiko or rebetico, is a term used today to designate originally disparate kinds of urban Greek music which have come to be grouped together since the s ...
'' film score, composing the music for the Werner Herzog film ''
Signs Of Life'', and composing the music for the 1983 BBC TV mini series, ''
The Dark Side of the Sun
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...
''.
External links
*
*
1939 births
20th-century classical composers
20th-century male musicians
Greek classical musicians
Greek film score composers
Living people
Male film score composers
MEPs for Greece 1999–2004
Musicians from Athens
20th-century Greek musicians
New Democracy (Greece) MEPs
{{Greece-MEP-stub