NANA MOUSKOURI

As a child growing up in Nazi occupied Greece, where her father, Constantine, was part of the Nazi Resistance Movement, the legend that is Nana Mouskouri, found her escape from the horrors of war in singing. ‘Singing was a security for me. I was very shy.’ adding ‘Children need to be heard and by singing I was heard’. 

Her mother encouraged her, teaching her songs in French, songs she still sings on stage. ‘My parents used to say it was the only thing I could do. I could sing and I could cry’. 
Her family lived in Crete and her father worked as a film projectionist in a local open-air cinema, where the walls were covered in jasmine. ‘At the back of the courtyard stood a big acacia tree and under it’s shade was the little house where I grew up’. She remembers rushing out, first thing in the morning, to climb the steps to the stage, and standing there looking down at the empty rows of seats – and waiting for something to happen. ‘Of course I knew I would have to wait until the evening and then I would watch the people coming in, seeing the excitement and anticipation in their faces’. Nana would watch the audience leave after the film, climbing back up on stage while her father turned off the lights. ‘I stood in the middle of the stage, perfectly still, looking down at the empty seats. It was an amazing feeling, full of soul, standing there, bathed in moonlight, and suddenly I felt as if I were flying high …’
Perhaps this was the beginning of Mouskour’s love affair with the stage.

When the family left Crete for Athens, Nana and her elder sister, Jenny, joined the prestigious Athens Conservatoire. From the age of 6, she had shown musical talent but her sister was always considered the more talented. Then it was discovered that Nana had one vocal chord thicker than the other. This unusual condition accounted for her husky speaking voice and the ringing quality of her sung registers. ‘During the Nazi Occupation, my family could no longer afford to pay for my singing lessons but my teacher believed in me and continued to give me lessons free of charge’. 

That was until he discovered she was singing at night with her friends’ jazz group. Nana had discovered Jazz, a genre she loves to this day. He flew into a fury and Nana was expelled – along with her dreams of becoming an opera singer.

But the opera world’s loss was our gain because 50 years later, Nana Mouskouri is arguably the most successful female singer in history, selling over 350 million records worldwide, more than the Beatles and Elvis Presley combined so after 45 years of touring why has she decided to quit.
‘Singing has always been very important to me so this has not been a sudden decision.’ She explains in her huskily soft, accented voice. ‘I first began to think about it 15 years ago following the death of a very dear friend but I didn’t do anything about it until 2004 when the Olympics were in Greece. I realised then that I was at an age I never thought I would reach. It was then I decided: Ok, it is time for me to go. But I could not just stop immediately. I wanted to return to all the places I had been to say ‘Thank You’.

Complete interview appeared in ‘The Lady’, Oct 2, 2007


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