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Yannis Markopoulos (Γιάννης Μαρκόπουλος) (born 18 March 1939) is a Greek composer.[1]

Biography
Early life and education

Yannis Markopoulos was born in 1939 in Heraklion, Crete. From one of the old families of the island—his father was an attorney and later the Prefect—he spent his childhood in the seaside town of Ierapetra.[2] The Byzantine liturgy heard regularly from the church opposite his family home, Cretan traditional music, with its rapid dances of repeated small motifs, played by local instruments at the town’s weekly festivities, but at the same time the sound of the waves, and the detonation of land-mines in the aftermath of World War II, all these formed part of the acoustic universe of the composer as a child. He took his first lessons in music theory and the violin at the local conservatory and played the clarinet in the municipal band. Meanwhile other musical experiences of decisive importance were classical music as well as the music of the wider Eastern Mediterranean and, most important of all, that of nearby Egypt, which he heard either over the radio or from musicians and travellers passing through his hometown. Thanks to his father’s extensive private library he had the opportunity to deepen his knowledge, beyond school education, in literature, philosophy, history and the arts. He began composing music during his adolescence and two melodies of this time would later become songs that have enjoyed great popularity throughout Greece.

Career

In 1956 Markopoulos moved to Athens to further his music studies at the Athens Conservatoire under the composer Yiorgos Sklavos and the violin teacher Joseph Bustidui, while studying philosophy and sociology at the Panteion University. While a student he composed music for the theatre, for the cinema and for dance performances. When he was 24 he was awarded the Music Prize of the International Thessaloniki Film Festival for Nikos Koundouros’ film Young Aphrodites and subsequently his works Theseus (dance-drama), Hiroshima(ballet suite) and Three Dance Sketches were performed by avant-garde dance groups. In 1967 a military dictatorship was imposed in Greece. Markopoulos left for London, where he enriched his knowledge under the English composer Elizabeth Lutyens, while his acquaintance with the composers Jani Christou and Iannis Xenakis played an important rôle in the deepening of his contact with the most pioneering musical figures. In London he composed the secular cantata Ilios o Protos (Sun the First) on the poetry of Odysseas Elytis (Nobel Prize 1979) and completed the musical ceremony Idou o Nymphios, a work the composer still wishes to keep unreleased with the exception of one part, the song Zavara-Katra-Nemia, a vocal composition of Dionysian character, that was released in 1966 and became one of his best known pieces. Also in London he composed Chroismoi (Oracles) for symphony orchestra and the Pyrrichioi Dances A, B, C (the first three of the 24 Dances he completed in 2001) that were performed in 1968 by the London Concertante Orchestra at the Queen Elizabeth Hall. During the same year he was commissioned to write the music for Shakespeare’s The Tempest performed by the Royal National Theatre and directed by David Hugh Jones. In 1969 Markopoulos returned to Athens with a musical vision that would not only change the course of music in Greece but would also lend immediate moral support to the general demand for restoration of democracy, the struggle being led primarily by university students and intellectuals. He founded a new and highly distinctive musical ensemble which included Greek local instruments. Thus the piano was combined with the lyre for the first time, while he also added instruments of his own invention, particularly among the percussion, with the intention of enriching the variety of sounds. He then selected young musicians, singers and actors, from both the city and the provinces, and collaborating with painters and poets he presented a series of performances with his musical works Ilios o Protos (Sun the First), Chroniko (Chronicle), Ithagenia (Nativeland), Thitia (Lifetime), Stratis Thalassinos Among the Agapanthi (poetry by Giorgos Seferis, Nobel Prize 1963), Oropedio (Mountain Plain) at the Lydra venue which he named music-studio. His most fervent supporters were indeed the students and intellectuals who filled the music-studio daily, despite the constant interventions of the regime that would constantly attempt to shut it down. The composer’s vision had materialised and a new musical wave had been born which he termed “Return to the Roots”. He defined it as “a project for the future involving the process of examination, evaluation and selection of the indestructible sources of our living traditions in combination with selected contemporary art forms and elements”: the outcome was an exceptionally original sound emerging from the unique tone colours stemming from the unaccustomed blends of instruments and voices. In 1976 he composed the popular liturgy The Free Besieged, based on the poem by Greece’s national poet Dionysios Solomos, that he conducted in the crowded Panathenean Stadium, and which was presented in London in 1979. In 1977 he composed the music for the BBC television series Who Pays the Ferryman? The musical theme was a hit in Britain and gained the composer international renown. Numerous invitations for concerts abroad followed, in Paris , Berlin, Frankfurt, Munich, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Canada, Russia, Australia and the United States. Markopoulos continued composing music for the theatre and for the cinema, collaborating with directors such as Jules Dassin, George Cosmatos, Nikos Koundouros and Spyros Evaggelatos. Through his work Yannis Markopoulos did much to shape the musical landscape of the 1970s.

In 1980 Markopoulos married the singer Vassiliki Lavina, his long-time associate, and in 1981 their daughter Eleni was born. For a period he sought a more private life with his family while preparing for the opening of a new chapter in his music, compositions that would display melodic outbursts sustained by polytonic quality and dazzling rhythms of an inexhaustible exuberance. In 1987 he founded the Palintonos Armonia Orchestra (the name deriving from Heraclitus) with which he would give concerts in Greece and abroad and record many of his works. The works of this period include the Concerto-Rhapsody for Lyre and Symphony Orchestra, Mitroa for string orchestra, the Healing Symphony, two oratorios, two song cycles, chamber music works, four quartets, two sonatas, and five pieces for violin and piano. In 1994 he composed one of his most important works The Liturgy of Orpheus. There followed Re-Naissance: Crete between Venice and Constantinople, a musical journey in four units that strikes a balance between the opera form and that of the oratorio, and the opera Erotokritos and Areti. In 1999 he composed Shapes in Motion, a piano concerto inspired by Pythagoras and dedicated to his daughter Eleni. Some of his latest works are Evilia Topia (Sunlit Landscapes), fantasy for solo flute; O Nomos tis Thalporis, oratorio-musical spectacle for voices, choir, wind orchestra, ballet and video projection, dedicated to the environment; and Triptych for flute, strings and harp.

Selected discography

2009 THE LITURGY OF ORPHEUS For voices,mixed choir, narrator and symphony orchestra
2009 SHAPES IN MOTION ( Piano Concerto) For solo piano and symphony orchestra
2004 O TAHITATOS LOUIS For mixed choir, narrator and symphony orchestra
2001 TO TRAGOUDI TOU ACHILLEA (THE SONG OF ACHILLES) For voices, mixed choir, narrator and symphony orchestra
2003 EROTOKRITOS AND ARETI Opera in two acts
1996 RE-NAISSANCE, Crete between Venice and Constantinople Musical performance in two acts with four parts'''
1998 FILI POU FEVGOUN (FRIENDS WHO ARE LOST) Songs Cycle
1996 BRIGHTNESS (ANTAVGIES) Orchestral memories of movements and pictures
1994 THE LITURGY OF ORPHEUS For voices,mixed choir, narrator and symphony orchestra
1988 MUSIC FOR DOMENIKOS THEOTOKOPOULOS [EL GRECO) For ensemble Renaissance instruments
1983 SIRINES (SIRENS) Musical voyage in four seasons in the form of a contemporary oratorio
1980 ΟRΙΖΟNTΕS (HORIZONS) Songs Cycle
1980 DENEKEDOUPOLI Musical performance for children
1979 SERGIANI STON KOSMO Songs cycle in three unities
1978 WHO PAYS THE FERRYMAN? Music for the BBC TV series
1978 PERIODIA PROTI (THE FIRST TOUR) 13 compositions for orchestra
1977 I ELEFTHERI POLIORKIMENI (THE FREE BESIEGED) For voices, female narrator, mixed choir and chamber orchestra
1975 OROPEDIO (MOUNTAIN PLAIN ) Musical discourse
1974 THITIA (LIFETIME ) Work in nine parts, type of one-act opera
1974 METANASTES (EMIGRANT WORKERS) Songs Cycle
1974 THESSALIKOS KIKLOS (THESSALIAN CYCLE) Popular musical work with theatrical style performances
1973 O STRATIS THALASSINOS ANAMESA STOUS AGAPANTHOUS - KE ALLA TRAGOUDIA (STRATIS THALASSINOS AMONG THE AGAPANTHI - AND OTHER SONGS) For voices, mixed choir and chamber orchestra
1973 ANEXARTITA Series of unrelated songs
1972 ITHAGENIA (NATIVELAND) For voices, and chamber orchestra
1972 TA TRAGOUDIA TOU NEOU PATERA (THE SONGS OF THE NEW FATHER )
1970 CHRONIKO (CHRONICLE) For voices, and chamber orchestra
1969 ILIOS O PROTOS (SUN THE FIRST) For voices, narrator, female choir and chamber orchestra
1963 THESEUS (THISEAS) Ballet enriched

SONGS

1975 I ELLADA (LENGO) GREECE (LENGO)
1973 I OCHTHRI /ENEMIES EN TERED THE CITY
1972 OCHI DEN PREPI
1968 ZAVARA -KATRA - NEMIA
1965 PERA APO TI THALASSA
1964 GREMISMENA SPITIA
1964 KARAVIA
1964 I KORI (MAVROMADILOUSA)
1964 MOURAGIO
1964 XASTERIA
1964 O PRAMATEFTIS
1964 POU ISSE AFTI TIN ANIXI
1960 ANISTORO TI MONAXIA
1960 GALAZIO PERISTERI

MUSIC FOR THEATER AND FILM

1989 THESMOPHORIAZOUSES by ARISTOPHANES
1993 LYSISTRATA by ARISTOPHANES
1965 THE GIRL WITH THE RIBBON
1993 BYRON
1984 TA CHRONIA TIS THIELAS
1977 KRAVGI GINEKON
1971 VORTEX (Das Gesicht der Medusa)
1968 EPICHIRISIS APOLLON
1967 O THANATOS TOU ALEXANDROU
1966 DICHASMOS
1963 MIKRES APHRODITES ( Young Aphrodites)