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Born as Ioanna Mouskouri on October 13, 1934, in Chania, Crete, Greece, Nana is the biggest selling female artist of all time. Although she is of Greek origin, she has successfully established herself as a singer with international caliber. Her fluency in languages like Greek, French, English, Spanish, Italian, German, Latin, and Portuguese among others helped her establish a fan base in Europe, the Americas, and even Asia. Her songs are generally of somber, longing, and sentimental reflections upon love, for which the emotion of her voice is particularly suited
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About Nana Mouskouri
Mouskouri had exhibited special musical talent from the age of 6, but one of her vocal cord was thicker than the other. This peculiar condition explains both her gruff spoken voice as well as the ringing quality of her sung registers. Despite the defect in her vocal cords, Mouskouri started taking singing lessons from the age of 12, and continued with it. She used to like listening to American jazz singers such as Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, and Billie Holiday as well as French chanson stars like E´dith Piaf over the radio. She got into the Conservatoire in 1950, although she was a very good student, she was eventually expelled from there for following a genre of music, Jazz, that was considered to be absolutely worthless.
After the experience in Conservatoire, she started performing at Zaki club in Athens. She recorded her very first song "Fascination" in two languages Greek and English for Odeon/EMI Greece in 1957. The Famous Greek composer Manos Hadjidakis became her mentor after hearing her sing at the night club. He started writing songs for her, and one of his songs (co-written with poet Nikos Gatsos) which she had sung at the inaugural Greek Song Festival won the first prize. People began to take notice of her, and again in 1960's Greek Song Festival, she rendered two more Hadjidakis compositions. Timoria and Kiparissaki and both the songs tied for first prize.
In 1961, she sang the single Weisse Rosen aus Athen, a soundtrack for a German documentary about Greece. The song was a hit, and it was translated into several different languages. In 1962 she recorded an album of American jazz titled, The Girl From Greece Sings. She recorded My Coloring Book in UK, which became a major hit. In 1963 she made Paris her permanent home. She won the esteemed Grand Prix du Disque in France and was noticed by French composer Michel Legrand. He composed Les Parapluies de Cherbourg (1964) and L'Enfant au Tambour (1965), her big French hits.
Apart from churning out hit songs in different languages, she was also appointed a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in October 1993. She went to Bosnia and the plight there moved her deeply, so she performed a series of fund-raising concerts in Sweden and Belgium. She was also elected a Member of the European Parliament from 1994 until 1999.
After enthralling music lovers all over the world, Mouskouri has embarked upon a farewell concert tour of Europe, Australia, Asia, South America, the United States, and Canada.
