Yannis Markopoulos, one of Greece’s most important composers, has died at the age of 82. Yannis Markopoulos was born in 1939 in Crete, where he took his first musical lessons in theory and violin, and developed his first influences from the local rhythms. He continued his studies at the Athens Conservatory, In 1963 he was awarded a prize at the Thessaloniki Film Festival for his music for the film Little Venuses by Nikos Koundouros and in the same year his ballets Theseus and Hiroshima were performed by new dance companies.
In 1967, with the military regime making life difficult, Yannis Markopoulos went to London, and composed music against the military dictatorship. When the democracy was restored, he started composing his most important works.
In 1994 he composed the Orpheus Mass – for voice, choir and orchestra – which philosophically addresses the redefinition of man’s relationship with nature. This is followed by Renaissance Crete between Venice and the City, a musical journey in 4 sections, the opera Herotokritos and Virtue, Schemes in Motion, a piano concerto inspired by Pythagoras, Euphellenic Landscapes, fantasy for solo flute, and The Law of Thalassa, oratorio-musical spectacle for voices, choir, wind orchestra, ballet and images.
