Manos Hatzidakis (also spelled Hadjidakis; Greek: Μάνος Χατζιδάκις; 23 October 1925 – 15 June 1994) was a Greek composer and theorist of Greek music, widely regarded as one of the greatest Greek composers of all time. He was one of the main proponents of the “Éntekhno” form of music, along with Mikis Theodorakis, and he is credited as the founder of the Orchestra of Colours, an ensemble performing lesser-known works and the music of Greek composers, and influenced a broad swathe of Greek culture through his writings and radio broadcasts. With his theoretical and compositional work, he is considered to be the first to connect post-war the worded music with traditional music.
In 1960, Hatzidakis won an Academy Award for Best Original Song for “Never on Sunday” from the film Never on Sunday, but he refused the award because he felt that Athens was misrepresented in the film.
Hadzidakis was born on 23 October 1925 in Xanthi, Greece, to lawyer Georgios Hatzidakis, who came from the village of Myrthios, Agios Vasileios, in the Rethymno prefecture in Crete; and Aliki Arvanitidou, who came from Adrianoupolis. The family prospered from sales of tobacco grown locally, but the boy’s father died in 1931 and his mother took him to live in Athens in comparative poverty.
Hatzidakis studied music theory with Menelaos Pallandios, in the period 1940–1943. At the same time, he studied philosophy at the University of Athens. However, he never completed this course.[1] He met and connected with other musicians, writers, and intellectuals including George Seferis, Odysseas Elytis, Angelos Sikelianos, Yannis Tsarouchis and especially the poet Nikos Gatsos who became a close friend.[5] During the last stages of the Axis occupation of Greece, Hatzidakis was an active participant in the Greek Resistance through membership of the United Panhellenic Organization of Youth (EPON), the youth branch of the major resistance organisation EAM, where he met Mikis Theodorakis with whom he soon developed a strong friendship.
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