Thursday 27 December 2018

HARIS ALEXIOU: THE MOST MAGNIFICENT GREEK VOICE

Χάρις Αλεξίου
Christmas days have gone and The Grandma has returned to her normal life. Today, she has gone to the library to borrow a Konstandinos Kavafis' book, one of her favourite authors.

The Grandma loves Greece since she studied classic Greek at school when she was a teenager. She loves classic languages and Latin and Greek are her favourite ones. She has decided to choose this book because today is Haris Alexiou's birthday and she wants to homage this wonderful singer reading some poems in her natural language.

The Grandma admires Haris a lot and she has got all her songs in different ways, cassettes, LP's, CD's and MP3's. She remembers with a lot of emotion the first time, and the last one, that Haris visited Barcelona. It was in 2008 when she offered an unforgettable concert in the Palau de la Música.

After reading Kavafis and listening to Haris, The Grandma has studied a new lesson of her
Elementary Language Practice manual (Grammar 55).

More information: Possession 1

Haris Alexiou, in Greek Χάρις Αλεξίου, born 27 December 1950 in Thebes, Greece as Hariklia Roupaka, in Greek, Χαρίκλεια Ρουπάκα, is a Greek singer. She is considered one of the most popular singers in Greece and has been commercially successful since the 1970s.

She has worked with important Greek songwriters and composers, has performed at top musical theatres all over the world, and has received several awards. She has recorded over thirty albums and has been featured on albums of other musicians.

Χάρις Αλεξίου
On 14 March 2010 Alpha TV ranked Alexiou as the first top-certified female artist in Greece in the phonographic era, since 1960, Chart Show: Your Countdown and the Number 3 overall ranking with regards to the sale of the personal albums certified Gold or Platinum in Greek discography since 1970, behind the male singers George Dalaras and Yiannis Parios.

Eight of her personal albums released between 1977 and 2003 have surpassed 1.5 million sales, the only Greek female singer to do so.

She also has an audience in Turkey and her various songs were sung in Turkish. She has lived in Athens since 1958, when she and her family moved there from Thebes. Her grandmother's family migrated to Thebes in 1924 from Seydiköy, İzmir. Her name was given to a street in Gaziemir.

Haris Alexiou appeared in the Greek music scene in the early 1970s. Her charismatic voice, combined with a unique way of performing and a strong scenic presence, very soon led her to the top.

More information: Haris Alexiou

Today she is still at the top, always working hard, always seeking new ways of expression and always giving prestige and value to the contemporary light and popular Greek music. She has worked with the most important Greek songwriters, has performed at the greatest musical theatres in all five continents and has received several important awards.

She has had over thirty of her own albums recorded, has participated in albums of other artists, either renowned or young and promising, being always open to new ways in music.

The first important step in her career was her participation with George Dalaras in the album Mikra Asia written by Apostolos Kaldaras and Pythagoras Papastamatiou in 1972. A historic album, the biggest hit of the '70s and included in Minos-EMI's 100 Greatest Hits of the Century.

Χάρις Αλεξίου
The 1980s start with two enormous hits: Fevgo and Ximeroni. Songs of Yesterday, her album with Dimitra Galani includes ballads which fascinate the public. At the same time she records traditional and folk songs, rebetika and laika, and gives concerts both in Greece and abroad.

1990 begins with her second collaboration with Thanos Mikroutsikos. The album is entitled This Cologne Lingers on for Years with lyrics by Lina Nikolakopoulou.

In October of the same year, she participates in the most important concert of the decade in Peace and Friendship Stadium of Athens. In this festive concert, called Our Own Night, all the big names of the Greek show business are present. Yiannis Parios, Thanos Mikroutsikos, Dimitra Galani, Chris Nikolopoulos, Alkistis Protopsalti, George Sarris, George Zambetas, Lakis Lazopoulos and the legendary Melina Mercouri.

In September 2000, the album Whispers is released. It includes her favourite songs performed by her and a piano only. In October, she presents these songs in Music Palace of Athens and in the ancient Epidaurus Odeon accompanied by a small musical ensemble. The same year, she founds her own record company, Estia, in order to produce all her future ventures in discography.

From Greece to Australia, from Russia to Africa, from America to Japan, Haris Alexiou travels around and shows the world the feeling of the Greek song

She firmly believes that the Greek song, through its poets and composers, made her love and better understand the history and the culture of her country.

More information: Haaretz


After the Greek economic crisis,
we don’t really know what tomorrow will bring. 
These changes are happening too swiftly for us to establish 
as artists how to interpret this into our music.
An artist has to find light in the darkness and at this moment,
we have to wait to see the light.

 Χάρις Αλεξίου/Haris Alexiou

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