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Yannis Markopoulos was born in Heracleion, Crete, on 18 March 1939. Both his mother, from the town of Sfakia, and his father, from the town of Ierapetra, were descendants of old Cretan families. His father practised law and later in life served as Prefect in the districts of Lassithi, Chania, Eurytania and Preveza. At the age of eight, Markopoulos began to learn to play the violin and the clarinet in the local band of Ierapetra. The traditional Cretan music in conjunction with the symphonic music he would hear from the radio at that time as well as the music of nearby Egypt formed his earliest and most decisive musical experiences.
After leaving high school in 1956, he went to Athens to study music at the Athens Conservatory, where he attended theory classes with the composer Yorgos Sklavos and violin classes with the violinist Joseph Bustidui, while at the same time he entered the Panteio University of Political and Economic Sciences. Later, he pursued his musical studies under the instruction of the composer Yannis Papaioannou, completing them in London in 1967 under the English composer Elisabeth Lutyens. It was here that he would compose "Sun the First" and the music for Shakespeare's "The Tempest", featuring Sir John Clemens and directed by David Jones, as well as the composite musical ritual "Behold the Bridegroom" (for two choirs, symphony orchestra, female singer and actors).
When he first arrived in Athens from Crete, Markopoulos brought with him a number of compositions he had written as an adolescent in his hometown. Those early melodies were later to become highly successful songs such as "Beyond the Sea", "Shattered Homes" and "Golden Words".
He continued to work on his musical compositions, at the same time coming into contact with the most vibrant elements of modern-day music, of Byzantine hymnography and of traditional songs from all over Greece and the Mediterranean, elements which set the composer's works apart. His youthful symphonic works were performed in London, Paris and Tokyo. Among the works of this period are "Three Dance Sketches", the first of the "Pyrrichioi Dances Α, Β, Γ, Δ," (out of the definitive 24), and "Oracles", all for symphony orchestra.
Markopoulos has also written music for the theatre, collaborating with many of Greece's directors such as Karolos Koun, Alexis Solomos, Minoas Volonakis, Spyros Evangelatos and others. He has also composed the music for plays by Aristophanes and Euripides (performed by the National Theatre of Greece), for plays by Shakespeare and Kazantzakis (performed by the Popular Theatre), for plays by Euripides and Menander and works from the Cretan Renaissance (performed by the Amphitheatre Theatre Company), for plays by Aristophanes and Chekhov (performed by the Art Theatre) and for plays performed by the Theatre Companies of Anna Synodinou, Manos Katrakis and others.
For the cinema, he composed the music for Nikos Koundouros' film "Young Aphrodites" (1962), for which he was awarded prizes in Germany and Japan as well as at the International Film Festival of Thessaloniki. He collaborated with the same director on the films "Vortex" and "Byron". He has collaborated with the director Jules Dassin in the films "Rehearsal" and "Women's Cry". In addition, he has composed the theme music for both Greek and foreign films including "Fear" by Kostas Manousakis, "The Olive Trees" and "Alexander's Death" by Dimitris Kollatos, "The Seventh "Day of Creation" by Vassilis Georgiadis, "Persecution", "No, Mr Johnson" and "The Fate of an Innocent" (the Music Award of the Thessaloniki Film Festival) by Grigoris Grigoriou, "Operation Apollon", "Queen of Spades" by Yorgos Skalenakis, "Beloved" by Yorgos Pan Kosmatos, and others.
From early in his career, Markopoulos has carved his own personal path through the ways of Greek music, fervently and dynamically proposing a "Return to the Roots". His proposal gradually took on the dimensions of an art movement. The parameters of this musical movement concurrently underpinned his philosophical views connected with his social propositions regarding life and art. The composer defines this movement as "a project for the future, consisting of elements drawn from the indestructible sources of our living tradition in combination with selected contemporary art data". Today, the most forward-looking creations in art-forms in Europe share the basis of this very same movement proposed by Markopoulos, with notable artists drawing their inspiration from the traditional, artistic products of the people with the aim of rendering new trends in their art.
During the 70s, Markopoulos formed an orchestral ensemble which did not exclude traditional Greek instruments. Thus, the piano was combined with the lyra for the first time. He staged performances in the "Lydra" and "Kyttaro" music-studios. He chose new singers (then unknown to the Greek public) mainly from the field of traditional music and others from the field of modern music and taught them meticulously to interpret his works. New life was breathed into the Greek "entechni" (art) musical creation, endowing it with a totally distinctive sound in combination with a fresh look at the poetry of Solomos, Seferis, Elytis, and with powerful lyrics by writer-poets such as Myris, Eleftheriou, Skourtis, Chronas, Virvos and others.
The works of that period include: "Sun the First", "Chronicle", "Nativeland", "Stratis Thalassinos", "Lifetime Service", "Emigrant Workers", "Independent Songs", "Thessalian Cycle". For many of his compositions the composer has written his own verses, among which "Zavara-Katra-Nemia" and "Hellada-Lengo". He began an arduous struggle against the military dictatorship and his songs were on the lips of everyone, becoming one with the rallying cry of the Youth Movement. The seat of this struggle was the "Lydra" music-studio. A significant role was played by the "rizitika" (traditional Cretan folksongs), specially arranged and orchestrated as they were by the composer, and particularly the song entitled "When Will There Be Fair Skies?".
In 1973, Markopoulos began composing a popular liturgy, entitled "The Free Beseiged" (on the poetry of Dionysios Solomos), presenting it for the first time in the summer of 1977 in a jam-packed stadium in the centre of Athens. The same work was performed in concert in the major Greek cities as well as in London, Brussels, Washington and Cyprus. In the 70s, he also composed the theme-tune for the BBC television series "Who Pays the Ferryman?", which became a worldwide hit and topped the English charts and millions of people round Europe were humming this theme-tune.
With his exceptional musical ensemble he has given concerts in Greece and abroad, concerts which bear the stamp of quality as major cultural events. Yannis Markopoulos emerged as a self-luminous nucleus among the composers of the time. During a period of great social upheaval, through both his work and his stance, he shaped a revolution in the world of art, leading to the exquisite musical landscape of the 70s.
During the 80s, a period of more composite creations began, which found expression in his works "Sirens", "Friends Who Depart", and in the "Concerto- Rhapsody for Lyre and Orchestra". In the same period, he founded the "Palintonos Harmony Orchestra", which constitutes a combination of symphonic and traditional instruments, and with which he has performed concerts with great success both in Greece and abroad. In his search for and insistence on an individual yet genuinely Greek sound, he utilizes orchestral ensembles with unusual combinations of instruments. The Greek instruments are interwoven harmoniously with the European instruments, as also are the old with the new.
In 1994, he completed the composition of "The Liturgy of Orpheus", a work which he performed before enthusiastic audiences in Vienna, Brussels, Paris (UNESCO) and at the Athens Music Megaron (Concert Hall). In "The Liturgy of Orpheus", Markopoulos expands his musical ideology, and so the ancient Orphic texts, which he selected from those surviving, blend with the sound colours produced by the combination of symphonic and Greek instruments, constituting from thence on a fairly large orchestral ensemble in relation to the smaller orchestral ensembles which many of his previous musical works have. At the same time, he gives a premier role to a tenor. Together with the two singers and the narrator, he patterns an evolved form of liturgy which also philosophically addresses itself to the social plea for the redetermination of man with Nature. The ancient Orphic hymns were the guiding inspiration behind the unity of form and content of the work. This creative proposal by the composer brings him into fresh contact with the pioneering artistic forces in Europe.
In 1995, Yannis Markopoulos composed the symphonic work "Re-Naissance: Crete - Between Venice and Constantinople". In this work, the composer was inspired by the great moments which have marked the course of Hellenism, and he sets out on a musical journey, with Crete as his starting point, to those places where Greek culture has left its indelible stamp. The work was first presented at the Athens Music Megaron (commissioned by the Megaron) and subsequently at the Palais des Beaux Arts in Brussels in March 1997. This Music-Performance, as the composer terms it, draws elements from the opera, the concert, the modern spectacle. It anticipates the redefinition of our historicity and the consolidation of our faith in the lifetime experiences that we retain alive within ourselves.
1996, he composed a series of orchestral themes entitled "Brightness" and, in 1997, the song cycle "Unseen Pulse". Other works composed from 1993 till today include: "Merimnes/Concerns" (eighteen pieces for two and four instruments), "Eleven Pieces" for piano, "Tetrades" (3 string quartets), "Mitroa / Registers" (compositions for symphony orchestra and for chamber orchestra), "Shapes in Motion" (concerto for piano and symphony orchestra), "On Stage" (lieder and chorales for two singers, mixed choir and symphonic ensemble) on poetry by George Seferis, "The Song of Achilles" (cantata), "Erotokritos and Areti" (opera) based on the love poem by Vitsentzos Kornaros of the Cretan Renaissance, and the "Symfonia tis Iasis"/"Healing Symphony" for symphony orchestra, mixed choir and soloist.
Yannis Markopoulos continues his creative course with new compositions, asserting that "the rules and laws of science must permeate art in order to sustain it".
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