Greece

When Vassilis Tsitsanis passed away on January 18, 1984, on his 69th birthday, music historians and experts knew that there will never be another Tsitsanis and all popular Greek music from then on would derive from his legacy alone. Tsitsanis'...

A new, impressive mosaic depicting legendary Greek musician Vassilis Tsitsanis now adorns the museum dedicated to him in his birthplace of Trikala. The creators of the great artwork are Michalis Koufogiannis and Giorgos Kourmetzas. It took the two artists several...

January 18, 2019 marks 104 years since the birth of the brilliant Greek musician Vassilis Tsitsanis, as well as 35 years since his passing. Born in 1915 in Trikala, Thessaly, Tsitsanis was destined to become one of Greece’s most popular and...

It was a magical night on Wednesday as dozens of thousands of Athenians paid tribute to the music of Vassilis Tsitsanis, the emblematic composer of Greek popular music, in the  Panathenaic Stadium. The "Play, my Tsitsanis" tribute concert organized by...

The main building of the old prison in Trikala, Greece, will be turned into Tsitsanis Museum, according to Kostas Agorastos, Thessaly's regional governor. Greek media report the budget for the project is 2.8 million euros and will be 85% co-financed by the...

Stelios Kazantzidis -- who died in 2001 --was the voice that contained the pain and desire of post-war, poverty-stricken Greece.

Rebetiko, sometimes called the "Greek Blues," is perhaps the most influential genre of Greek music. While the movement as a whole was significant internationally, there were a few Rebetiko singers that defined the iconic genre. Rebetiko singers, musicians, and...

The poet of Thessaloniki and rebetiko scholar Dinos Christianopoulos died in August of 2020, but he left behind him a rich and diverse poetic legacy that will never be forgotten in Greece. He was born in Thessaloniki in 1931—the beautiful...

The moving film "Cloudy Sunday," which was released in 2021, tells the poignant and tragic story of the Greek-Jewish population of Thessaloniki during WWII. Cloudy Sunday: The Story Against the wider backdrop of WWII, the film follows two lovers, Estrea and...

Beloved singer Yiannis Poulopoulos whose melancholy voice marked Greece's 1960s and 1970s passed away on Sunday night at the age of 79, after facing heart problems in the past few years. Poulopoulos was discovered by Mikis Theodorakis in 1963 and...

Athens' Acropolis Museum will celebrate its tenth anniversary with several events, including a photography show, a lecture on ancient sculpture colors, a concert by famous Greek composer Stavros Xarchakos and the opening of a walk-through excavation of an ancient...

Yiannis Polykandriotis, the legendary Greek bouzouki player and music teacher, passed away on Wednesday in London at the age of 73. He was the son of rebetiko master Theodoros Polykandriotis and brother of composer Thanassis Polykandriotis. He honed his skills...

The international music industry finally seemed to take its first notice of Greece during the turbulent decade of the 1960's. International singers gave new, modern twists to the unique melodies of the country, while portraying an image of Greece as a...

A host of Greek singers and composers will gather on Monday September 28 at Athens's Theatro Vraxon to pay tribute to Giogros Margaritis, one of the few remaining authentic voices of Greek popular music, ta laika. Composers Mimis Plessas, Christos...

The passing of Grigoris Bithikotsis on April 7, 2005 marked the end of the era of the great Greek folk singers (laikos tragoudistis) and songwriters. Voices like that of Bithikotsis belong to a different time, to a different Greece. The...