Nana Mouskouri

Athens, Paris and the world

Ioanna Mouschouri was born in Chania, Crete on October 13, 1934, studied at the Athens Conservatoire from 1950, made her first recording, "Fascination", for Odeon in 1957, and won the first Greek Song Festival in 1959 with a composition by Manos Hadjidakis. In 1960 she won the Mediterranean Song Festival in Barcelona, moved to Paris and signed to Philips-Fontana at the invitation of Louis Hazan. "Weisse Rosen aus Athen" sold over a million in Germany in 1961; in 1962 she made an American jazz album with Quincy Jones; and in 1963 she represented Luxembourg at Eurovision with "A force de prier", finishing eighth.

Michel Legrand wrote French hits for her in 1964 and 1965, she toured with Harry Belafonte in 1965 and 1966, and she played the Olympia in 1967. A BBC series, Presenting Nana Mouskouri, ran from 1968 to 1976, and Passport (1976) reached number three in the UK. She is estimated to have made 450 albums in at least thirteen languages. Her trademark was a pair of black-rimmed glasses.

Later years

"Je chante avec toi liberte" (1981) went platinum in Canada in 1985, "Only Love" reached number two in the UK in 1986, and she became a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in 1993 and a member of the European Parliament for Greece from 1994 to 1999. She gave farewell concerts at the Herodes Atticus theatre in Athens on July 23 and 24, 2008, her first Greek performance there in the 1960s having been in 1962 and her return in 1984. Her honors include the World Music Awards in 1991 and 1992, an Arion lifetime achievement award in 2003, an honorary degree from McGill in 2013 and an Echo award in 2015. In 2025 "Guten Morgen, Sonnenschein" went viral through the Netflix series Cassandra, and on February 13, 2026 she received a Victoire d'honneur.