Nana Mouskouri is the biggest-selling Greek singer of all time. The fluency of Nana Mouskouri in multiple languages — Greek, French, English, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese — enabled her to reach audiences all over Europe, the Americas, and even Asia.

Mouskouri possessed of a distinctive, angelic soprano — the product of having been born with only one vocal cord.

Nana Mouskouri was sometimes described as Europe’s answer to Barbra Streisand. Her repertoire was varied enough to support the universal appeal she aimed for: jazz standards, well-known pop tunes from before and after the rock era, French cabaret chansons, movie songs, classical and operatic repertory, religious music, Greek folk songs and more.

Nana Mouskouri

Biography of Mouskouri

Ioanna Mouskouri (Joanna in English; known as “Nana” from a young age) was born on October 13, 1934, on the island of Crete, in the town of Chania.

Her father worked as a movie projectionist and moved the family to Athens when she was three.

Much of her childhood was colored by the Nazi occupation of Greece – during which time her father joined the resistance – and the four-year civil war that broke out in Greece after the end of World War II.

Nana Mouskouri started singing lessons at the age of 12, and listened regularly to radio broadcasts of American jazz singers (Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, and Billie Holiday in particular) and French chanson stars (Edith Piaf, etc.).

In 1950, Mouskouri was accepted into the Athens Conservatory, where she studied classical music with an emphasis on singing opera.

In 1957, it was discovered that Mouskouri had been singing with a jazz group by night, and she was summarily kicked out of the Conservatory.

Nana Mouskouri – Her Marriages and Family

Mouskouri married Yorgos Petsilas in 1961, the leader of popular Greek trio “The Athenians”, who became her backing band for many years. Mouskouri and Petsilas had two children, a son, Nicolas, born on 13 February 1968 and a daughter, Hélène, nicknamed Lénou, born on 6 July 1970.

In 1974, Mouskouri and Petsilas separated and in 1975 were officially divorced.

Mouskouri currently lives primarily in Switzerland, with her second husband, André Chapelle, whom she married on 13 January 2003.

Andre Chapelle is a music producer, and has been her patient companion since shortly after her divorce, but marriage has given the couple a surprise kick along.

Nana Mouskouri : Her Career

Manos Hadjidakis, who would become her mentor in the field of popular music, and recorded an EP featuring four of his compositions for a small record label that year, became the main composer of songs for Mouskouri, since he found the ideal voice for his tunes and sounds.

The following year Mouskouri performed Hadjidakis’ song “Kapou Iparchi Agapi Mou” (co-written with poet Nikos Gatsos) at the inaugural Greek Song Festival; it won first prize, and Mouskouri’s high-profile performance began to make a name for her.

At the 1960 festival, she performed two more Hadjidakis’ compositions, “Timoria” and “Kiparissaki,” which tied for first prize; not long after, she made her first appearance outside of Greece at the Mediterranean Song Festival, held in Barcelona.

Nana Mouskouri performed the Kostas Yannidis composition “Ksypna Agapi Mou,” which again won first prize, and attracted interest from several international record companies. She wound up signing with the Paris-based Philips-Fontana axis.

International Career for the Greek Singer Nana Mouskouri

In 1961, Mouskouri sang on the soundtrack of a German documentary about Greece, which resulted in the German-language single “Weisse Rosen aus Athen” (“The White Rose of Athens”).

Adapted from a folk melody by Manos Hadjidakis, it was an enormous hit, selling over a million copies in Germany; later translated into several different languages, it went on to become one of her signature tunes.

In 1962, she met producer Quincy Jones, who flew her to New York to record an album of American standards titled “The Girl From Greece Sings”.

Not long after, she had a sizable U.K. hit with the pop standard “My Colouring Book.”

In 1963, she settled permanently in Paris and recorded a Greek-language album; she also sang Luxembourg’s entry in the Eurovision Song Contest that year, “À Force de Prier,” which became an international hit, and helped win her the prestigious Grand Prix du Disque in France.

Nana Mouskouri attracted the notice of composer Michel Legrand, who supplied her with two major French hits in “Les Parapluies de Cherbourg” (1964) and “L’Enfant au Tambour” (1965).

Also in 1965, she recorded her second English-language album in America, “Nana Sings”, and found a patron in Harry Belafonte, who brought her on tour with him through 1966, and teamed with her for the live duo album “An Evening With Belafonte/Mouskouri”.

Mouskouri ascended to superstardom in France with her 1967 album “Le Jour Où la Colombe”, which featured much of the core of her French repertoire: “Au Coeur de Septembre”, “Adieu Angélina”, “Robe Bleue, Robe Blanche” and a cover of the French pop classic “Le Temps des Cerises”, among others.

Also scoring with a version of “Guantanamera,” she made her first headlining appearance at Paris’ legendary Olympia concert theater that year with a repertoire blending French pop, Greek folk and Manos Hadjidakis songs. The following year, she turned her attention to the British market, hosting a variety series called “Nana and Guests”

In 1969 she released her first full-length British LP “Over and Over”, a smash hit that spent almost two years on the charts. Already maintaining a heavy international touring schedule in the late 1960s, Mouskouri spent much of the 1970s on the road, broadening her worldwide popularity to levels rarely equaled.

In France, she released a series of top-selling albums that included “Comme un Soleil”, “Une Voix Qui Vient du Coeur”, “Vielles Chansons de France” and “Quand Tu Chantes”, among others; she also recorded a successful version of “Habanera,” from Bizet’s opera Carmen, in tandem with Serge Lama.

Her 1975 album “Sieben Schwarze Rosen” became a significant success in Germany, and her English-language album “Book of Songs” sold millions of copies worldwide.

Mouskouri had another English-language triumph with 1979’s “Roses and Sunshine”, which was particularly popular in Canada.

She scored a worldwide hit with 1981’s “Je Chante Avec Toi, Liberté,” which was translated into several languages after its widespread success in France, and also helped boost her hit German album “Meine Lieder Sind Meine Liebe”.

In 1984, Mouskouri returned to Greece for her first live performance in her homeland since 1962; from then on, she would record Greek-language albums for her home market.

In 1986, Mouskouri recorded “Only Love,” the theme song to a BBC TV series that went on to top the U.K. charts; it was also a hit in the French translation “L’Amour en Héritage.”

That same year, Mouskouri made a play for the Spanish-language market with the hit single “Con Todo el Alma,” a major success in Spain, Argentina, and Chile.

She released five albums in different languages in 1987, and the following year returned to her classical conservatory roots with the double LP “The Classical Nana” (aka Nana Classique), which featured some of her favorite opera excerpts.

Mouskouri’s 1991 English-language compilation “Only Love: The Best of Nana Mouskouri” became her best-selling release in the United States, which had long been the toughest market for her to crack.

She spent much of the ’90s continuing her rigorous global touring schedule, while recording regularly in French, German, Spanish, English and Greek.

Among her early-’90s albums were the spirituals collection “Gospel” (1990), the Spanish-language “Nuestras Canciones”, the multilingual, Mediterranean-themed “Côté Sud, Côté Coeur” (1992), the self-explanatory “Falling in Love Again: Great Songs From the Movies” (which reunited her with Harry Belafonte on two songs), and the French “Dix Mille Ans Encore”.

Nana Mouskouri also dedicated herself to public works, becoming a spokesperson for UNICEF in 1993 and gaining election to the European Parliament as a Greek representative from 1994-1999.

She recorded several more albums over 1996-1997, including the Spanish-language “Nana Latina” (which featured duets with Julio Iglesias and Mercedes Sosa), the English-language “Return to Love”, and the French pop classics set “Hommages”.

In 1997, she staged a high-profile Concert for Peace at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York; it was later released as an album, and aired as a TV special on PBS in America.

Meanwhile, a number of Mouskouri retrospectives appeared overseas, including elaborate box sets in both France and Germany. She continued her extensive international touring into the new millennium.

Nana Mouskouri – The Retirement

Nana Mouskouri currently lives in Switzerland with Chapelle, and up until her final performance in 2008 performed hundreds of concerts every year throughout her career.

In 2004, her French record company released an unprecedented 34-CD box set of more than 600 of Mouskouri’s mostly-French songs.

In 2006 she made a guest appearance at that year’s Eurovision Song Contest which was held, for the first time ever, in her native Greece. In the same year, she announced her plans to retire.

From 2006 until 2008, she conducted a farewell concert tour of Europe, Australia, Asia, South America, the United States and Canada.

On July 23, 2008, Mouskouri gave her final ‘Farewell Concert’ performance at the ancient Herodes Atticus Theatre, in Athens, Greece, before a packed stadium, including Greece’s Prime Minister and the Mayor of Athens, plus the mayors of Berlin, Paris and Luxembourg, along with fans from around the world and thousands of her Athenian admirers.

Nana Mouskouri is a great chapter for Greek Music and one of the most beloved Greek singers both in Greece and abroad.