Early life and education

Yannis Markopoulos was born in 1939 in Heraklion

Heraklion

Heraklion, or Heraclion is the largest city and the administrative capital of the island of Crete, Greece. It is the 4th largest city in Greece....

, Crete

Crete

Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece while retaining its own local cultural traits...

. From one of the old families of the island—his father was an attorney and later the Prefect—he spent his childhood in the seaside town of Ierapetra

Ierapetra

Ierapetra is a town in the southeast of the Greek island of Crete and a municipality of Crete region.-History:The town of Ierapetra is located on the southeast coast of Crete, along the beach of Ierapetra Bay. It lies south of Agios Nikolaos and southwest of Sitia and is an important regional...

. The Byzantine

Byzantine

Byzantine usually refers to the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages.Byzantine may also refer to:* A citizen of the Byzantine Empire, or native Greek during the Middle Ages...

 liturgy

Liturgy

Liturgy is either the customary public worship done by a specific religious group, according to its particular traditions or a more precise term that distinguishes between those religious groups who believe their ritual requires the "people" to do the "work" of responding to the priest, and those...

 heard regularly from the church opposite his family home, Cretan traditional music, with its rapid dances of repeated small motifs, played by local instruments at the town’s weekly festivities, but at the same time the sound of the waves, and the detonation of land-mines in the aftermath of World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, all these formed part of the acoustic universe of the composer as a child. He took his first lessons in music theory and the violin at the local conservatory and played the clarinet in the municipal band. Meanwhile other musical experiences of decisive importance were classical music as well as the music of the wider Eastern Mediterranean and, most important of all, that of nearby Egypt

Egypt

Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

, which he heard either over the radio or from musicians and travellers passing through his hometown. Thanks to his father’s extensive private library he had the opportunity to deepen his knowledge, beyond school education, in literature, philosophy, history and the arts. He began composing music during his adolescence and two melodies of this time would later become songs that have enjoyed great popularity throughout Greece.

Career

In 1956 Markopoulos moved to Athens

Athens

Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...

 to further his music studies at the Athens Conservatoire

Athens Conservatoire

The Athens Conservatoire is the oldest conservatoire in modern Greece. It was founded in 1871 by the Athens Music and Drama Society. Initially, the musical instruments that were taught there were limited to the violin and the flute, representative of the ancient Greek Apollonian and Dionysian...

 under the composer Yiorgos Sklavos and the violin teacher Joseph Bustidui, while studying philosophy

Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...

 and sociology

Sociology

Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...

 at the Panteion University

Panteion University

The Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences , usually referred to simply as the Panteion University, is a university located in Athens, Greece...

. While a student he composed music for the theatre, for the cinema and for dance performances. When he was 24 he was awarded the Music Prize of the International Thessaloniki Film Festival for Nikos Koundouros

Nikos Koundouros

Nikos Koundouros , is a Greek film director, born in Agios Nikolaos, Crete in 1926.He studied painting and sculpture at the Athens School of Fine Arts, and was later exiled because of his political beliefs to the Makronissos island. At the age of 28 he decided to follow a career in cinematography...

’ film Young Aphrodites

Mikres Aphrodites

Young Aphrodites is an award-winning drama film of 1963 directed by Nikos Koundouros based on a script of Vassilis Vassilikos.-Plot:In 200 BC, a nomadic group of shepherds, in search of new pastures, leave the mountains to settle close to a fishing village...

 and subsequently his works Theseus (dance-drama), Hiroshima(ballet suite) and Three Dance Sketches were performed by avant-garde dance groups. In 1967 a military dictatorship was imposed in Greece. Markopoulos left for London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, where he enriched his knowledge under the English composer Elizabeth Lutyens, while his acquaintance with the composers Jani Christou

Jani Christou

Jani Christou was a Greek composer.He was born in Heliopolis, Egypt, of Greek parents. He was educated at the English School in Alexandria and he took his first piano lessons from various teachers and from the important Greek pianist Gina Bachauer...

 and Iannis Xenakis

Iannis Xenakis

Iannis Xenakis was a Romanian-born Greek ethnic, naturalized French composer, music theorist, and architect-engineer. He is commonly recognized as one of the most important post-war avant-garde composers...

 played an important rôle in the deepening of his contact with the most pioneering musical figures. In London he composed the secular cantata Ilios o Protos (Sun the First) on the poetry of Odysseas Elytis

Odysseas Elytis

Odysseas Elytis was regarded as a major exponent of romantic modernism in Greece and the world. In 1979 he was bestowed with the Nobel Prize in Literature.-Biography:...

 (Nobel Prize 1979

Nobel Prize in Literature

Since 1901, the Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded annually to an author from any country who has, in the words from the will of Alfred Nobel, produced "in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction"...

) and completed the musical ceremony Idou o Nymphios, a work the composer still wishes to keep unreleased with the exception of one part, the song Zavara-Katra-Nemia, a vocal composition of Dionysian

Apollonian and Dionysian

The Apollonian and Dionysian is a philosophical and literary concept, or dichotomy, based on certain features of ancient Greek mythology. Several Western philosophical and literary figures have invoked this dichotomy in critical and creative works....

 character, that was released in 1966 and became one of his best known pieces. Also in London he composed Chroismoi (Oracles) for symphony orchestra and the Pyrrichioi Dances A, B, C (the first three of the 24 Dances he completed in 2001) that were performed in 1968 by the London Concertante Orchestra at the Queen Elizabeth Hall

Queen Elizabeth Hall

The Queen Elizabeth Hall is a music venue on the South Bank in London, United Kingdom that hosts daily classical, jazz, and avant-garde music and dance performances. The QEH forms part of Southbank Centre arts complex and stands alongside the Royal Festival Hall, which was built for the Festival...

. During the same year he was commissioned to write the music for Shakespeare’s

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...

 The Tempest

The Tempest

The Tempest is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1610–11, and thought by many critics to be the last play that Shakespeare wrote alone. It is set on a remote island, where Prospero, the exiled Duke of Milan, plots to restore his daughter Miranda to her rightful place,...

performed by the Royal National Theatre

Royal National Theatre

The Royal National Theatre in London is one of the United Kingdom's two most prominent publicly funded theatre companies, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company...

 and directed by David Hugh Jones. In 1969 Markopoulos returned to Athens with a musical vision that would not only change the course of music in Greece but would also lend immediate moral support to the general demand for restoration of democracy, the struggle being led primarily by university students and intellectuals. He founded a new and highly distinctive musical ensemble which included Greek local instruments. Thus the piano was combined with the lyre for the first time, while he also added instruments of his own invention, particularly among the percussion, with the intention of enriching the variety of sounds. He then selected young musicians, singers and actors, from both the city and the provinces, and collaborating with painters and poets he presented a series of performances with his musical works Ilios o Protos (Sun the First), Chroniko (Chronicle), Ithagenia (Nativeland), Thitia (Lifetime), Stratis Thalassinos Among the Agapanthi (poetry by Giorgos Seferis

Giorgos Seferis

Giorgos or George Seferis was the pen name of Geōrgios Seferiádēs . He was one of the most important Greek poets of the 20th century, and a Nobel laureate...

, Nobel Prize 1963), Oropedio (Mountain Plain) at the Lydra venue which he named music-studio. His most fervent supporters were indeed the students and intellectuals who filled the music-studio daily, despite the constant interventions of the regime that would constantly attempt to shut it down. The composer’s vision had materialised and a new musical wave had been born which he termed “Return to the Roots”. He defined it as “a project for the future involving the process of examination, evaluation and selection of the indestructible sources of our living traditions in combination with selected contemporary art forms and elements”: the outcome was an exceptionally original sound emerging from the unique tone colours stemming from the unaccustomed blends of instruments and voices. In 1976 he composed the popular liturgy The Free Besieged, based on the poem by Greece’s national poet Dionysios Solomos

Dionysios Solomos

Dionysios Solomos was a Greek poet from Zakynthos. He is best known for writing the Hymn to Liberty , of which the first two stanzas, set to music by Nikolaos Mantzaros, became the Greek national anthem in 1865...

, that he conducted in the crowded Panathenean Stadium

Panathinaiko Stadium

The Panathinaiko or Panathenaic Stadium , also known as the Kallimarmaro , is an athletic stadium in Athens that hosted the first modern Olympic Games in 1896...

, and which was presented in London in 1979. In 1977 he composed the music for the BBC television series Who Pays the Ferryman?

Who Pays the Ferryman?

Who Pays the Ferryman? was a television series produced by the BBC in 1977. The title of the series refers to the ancient religious belief and mythology of Charon the ferryman to Hades...

The musical theme was a hit in Britain and gained the composer international renown. Numerous invitations for concerts abroad followed, in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

, Frankfurt

Frankfurt

Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...

, Munich

Munich

Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...

, Amsterdam

Amsterdam

Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...

, Stockholm

Stockholm

Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...

, Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

, Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

 and the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. Markopoulos continued composing music for the theatre and for the cinema, collaborating with directors such as Jules Dassin

Jules Dassin

Julius "Jules" Dassin , was an American film director, with Jewish-Russian origins. He was a subject of the Hollywood blacklist in the McCarthy era, and subsequently moved to France where he revived his career.-Early life:...

, George Cosmatos

George Pan Cosmatos

George Pan Cosmatos was a Greek/Italian film director. After studying film in London, he became assistant director to Otto Preminger on Exodus , Leon Uris's epic about the birth of Israel. Thereafter he worked on Zorba the Greek , in which Cosmatos had a small part as Boy with Acne...

, Nikos Koundouros

Nikos Koundouros

Nikos Koundouros , is a Greek film director, born in Agios Nikolaos, Crete in 1926.He studied painting and sculpture at the Athens School of Fine Arts, and was later exiled because of his political beliefs to the Makronissos island. At the age of 28 he decided to follow a career in cinematography...

 and Spyros Evaggelatos. Through his work Yannis Markopoulos did much to shape the musical landscape of the 1970s.

In 1980 Markopoulos married the singer Vassiliki Lavina, his long-time associate, and in 1981 their daughter Eleni was born. For a period he sought a more private life with his family while preparing for the opening of a new chapter in his music, compositions that would display melodic outbursts sustained by polytonic quality and dazzling rhythms of an inexhaustible exuberance. In 1987 he founded the Palintonos Armonia Orchestra (the name deriving from Heraclitus

Heraclitus

Heraclitus of Ephesus was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, a native of the Greek city Ephesus, Ionia, on the coast of Asia Minor. He was of distinguished parentage. Little is known about his early life and education, but he regarded himself as self-taught and a pioneer of wisdom...

) with which he would give concerts in Greece and abroad and record many of his works. The works of this period include the Concerto-Rhapsody for Lyre and Symphony Orchestra, Mitroa for string orchestra, the Healing Symphony, two oratorios, two song cycles, chamber music works, four quartets, two sonatas, and five pieces for violin and piano. In 1994 he composed one of his most important works The Liturgy of Orpheus. There followed Re-Naissance: Crete between Venice

Venice

Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...

 and Constantinople

Constantinople

Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...

, a musical journey in four units that strikes a balance between the opera form and that of the oratorio, and the opera Erotokritos and Areti. In 1999 he composed Shapes in Motion, a piano concerto inspired by Pythagoras

Pythagoras

Pythagoras of Samos was an Ionian Greek philosopher, mathematician, and founder of the religious movement called Pythagoreanism. Most of the information about Pythagoras was written down centuries after he lived, so very little reliable information is known about him...

and dedicated to his daughter Eleni. Some of his latest works are Evilia Topia (Sunlit Landscapes), fantasy for solo flute; O Nomos tis Thalporis, oratorio-musical spectacle for voices, choir, wind orchestra, ballet and video projection, dedicated to the environment; and Triptych for flute, strings and harp.

Selected discography

• 2009 THE LITURGY OF ORPHEUS For voices,mixed choir, narrator and symphony orchestra
• 2009 SHAPES IN MOTION ( Piano Concerto) For solo piano and symphony orchestra
• 2004 O TAHITATOS LOUIS For mixed choir, narrator and symphony orchestra
• 2001 TO TRAGOUDI TOU ACHILLEA (THE SONG OF ACHILLES) For voices, mixed choir, narrator and symphony orchestra
• 2003 EROTOKRITOS AND ARETI Opera in two acts
• 1996 RE-NAISSANCE, Crete between Venice and Constantinople Musical performance in two acts with four parts
• 1998 FILI POU FEVGOUN (FRIENDS WHO ARE LOST) Songs Cycle
• 1996 BRIGHTNESS (ANTAVGIES) Orchestral memories of movements and pictures
• 1994 THE LITURGY OF ORPHEUS For voices,mixed choir, narrator and symphony orchestra
• 1988 MUSIC FOR DOMENIKOS THEOTOKOPOULOS [EL GRECO) For ensemble Renaissance instruments
• 1983 SIRINES (SIRENS) Musical voyage in four seasons in the form of a contemporary oratorio
• 1980 ΟRΙΖΟNTΕS (HORIZONS) Songs Cycle
• 1980 DENEKEDOUPOLI Musical performance for children
• 1979 SERGIANI STON KOSMO Songs cycle in three unities
• 1978 WHO PAYS THE FERRYMAN? Music for the BBC TV series
• 1978 PERIODIA PROTI (THE FIRST TOUR) 13 compositions for orchestra
• 1977 I ELEFTHERI POLIORKIMENI (THE FREE BESIEGED) For voices, female narrator, mixed choir and chamber orchestra
• 1975 OROPEDIO (MOUNTAIN PLAIN ) Musical discourse
• 1974 THITIA (LIFETIME ) Work in nine parts, type of one-act opera
• 1974 METANASTES (EMIGRANT WORKERS) Songs Cycle
• 1974 THESSALIKOS KIKLOS (THESSALIAN CYCLE) Popular musical work with theatrical style performances
• 1973 O STRATIS THALASSINOS ANAMESA STOUS AGAPANTHOUS - KE ALLA TRAGOUDIA (STRATIS THALASSINOS AMONG THE AGAPANTHI - AND OTHER SONGS) For voices, mixed choir and chamber orchestra
• 1973 ANEXARTITA Series of unrelated songs
• 1972 ITHAGENIA (NATIVELAND) For voices, and chamber orchestra
• 1972 TA TRAGOUDIA TOU NEOU PATERA (THE SONGS OF THE NEW FATHER )
• 1970 CHRONIKO (CHRONICLE) For voices, and chamber orchestra
• 1969 ILIOS O PROTOS (SUN THE FIRST) For voices, narrator, female choir and chamber orchestra
• 1963 THESEUS (THISEAS) Ballet enriched

SONGS

• 1975 I ELLADA (LENGO) GREECE (LENGO)
• 1973 I OCHTHRI /ENEMIES EN TERED THE CITY
• 1972 OCHI DEN PREPI
• 1968 ZAVARA -KATRA - NEMIA
• 1965 PERA APO TI THALASSA
• 1964 GREMISMENA SPITIA
• 1964 KARAVIA
• 1964 I KORI (MAVROMADILOUSA)
• 1964 MOURAGIO
• 1964 XASTERIA
• 1964 O PRAMATEFTIS
• 1964 POU ISSE AFTI TIN ANIXI
• 1960 ANISTORO TI MONAXIA
• 1960 GALAZIO PERISTERI

MUSIC FOR THEATER AND FILM

• 1989 THESMOPHORIAZOUSES by ARISTOPHANES
• 1993 LYSISTRATA by ARISTOPHANES
• 1965 THE GIRL WITH THE RIBBON
• 1993 BYRON
• 1984 TA CHRONIA TIS THIELAS
• 1977 KRAVGI GINEKON
• 1971 VORTEX (Das Gesicht der Medusa)
• 1968 EPICHIRISIS APOLLON
• 1967 O THANATOS TOU ALEXANDROU
• 1966 DICHASMOS
• 1963 MIKRES APHRODITES ( Young Aphrodites)

External links