Грек композиторы және дирижері Ставрос Ксархакос

Greek composer and conductor

Stavros Xarchakos, Greek: Σταύρος Ξαρχάκος (born 14 March 1939) is a Greek composer and conductor. Stavros Xarchakos was born in Athens, where he studied at the Athens Conservatoire. He has family origins from the Mani Peninsula. He emerged in the Greek music scene around 1963, composing music for the theatre and cinema. Among his collaborators was lyricist Lefteris Papadopoulos and singer Nikos Xylouris. In 1967 he went to Paris to study with Nadia Boulanger. He stayed in Paris for four years, and then studied with David Diamond at the Juilliard School of Music 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 (MEP) from 2000 to 2004. He was again a candidate for the European Parliament with New Democracy, in the elections of 25 May 2014, but was not elected.

Stavros Xarchakos was born on March 14, 1939, in the centre of Athens, where he lives to this day. He comes from Laconian Mani. Growing up in a neighbourhood of the capital, where the arts flourished, he came into contact with folk and rebetiko songs, but also with the European music, broadcast on the radio, while he was strongly influenced by church music. He also received musical inspiration from his grandmother, who played the guitar and sang along with arias from operas and cantadas. From an early age he showed an interest in music and attended cello and piano lessons. In 1958 he was admitted to the Athens Conservatory, where his first studies in music took place. In 1968, while he was at a very productive moment in his career, wishing to develop his music and broaden his knowledge, he decided to study music and composition in Paris, as a student of the leading French musicologist and pedagogue Nadia Boulanger, until 1973. In 1978, wishing to study the technique of classical music and immerse himself in harmony, composition and orchestra conducting, he decided to continue his studies at the Juilliard School in New York, at the urging of Leonard Bernstein, with whom he corresponded, after he was brought into contact with him by Kimon Friar, an internationally renowned academic and translator of the work of Nikos Kazantzakis. At the Juilliard School he studied alongside David Diamond for three years. He was taught score analysis under Bernstein for two years and conducted many concerts. An example is the concert held in New York, in which he conducted the city's Symphony Orchestra.

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 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.