Nana Mouskouri

Nana Mouskouri, born in Greece, ranks among the most celebrated and widely adored vocalists of her time. Command of several languages—Greek, French, English, Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese—allowed her to connect with listeners throughout Europe, the Americas, and parts of Asia. Emerging internationally in the early 1960s, the singer’s clear, ethereal soprano prompted frequent comparisons to Barbra Streisand. Her catalog encompassed jazz standards, pre- and post-rock pop numbers, French cabaret chansons, film themes, classical and operatic selections, sacred works, Greek and international folk material, and additional styles that sustained broad appeal. Instantly identifiable by her trademark black-rimmed glasses, Mouskouri built early European renown chiefly through material written for her, beginning with the title song from the 1961 release The White Rose of Athens. She represented Luxembourg at the 1963 Eurovision Song Contest performing “À Force de Prier.” In her adopted country of France she collaborated closely with composer Michel Legrand, most memorably delivering the theme for Jacques Demy’s 1964 musical The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. Between 1968 and 1976 she hosted the television program Presenting Nana Mouskouri, yet continued to focus on recording and scored another major success in 1981 with “Je Chante Avec Toi Liberté.” Although she has largely stepped away from touring since 2008, she maintains a steady output of market-specific releases. The 2011 project Nana & Friends honored her Greek and French audiences, while the 2018 covers album Forever Young marked six decades as a performer.

Ioana Mouskouri, known in English as Joanna and nicknamed “Nana” from childhood, entered the world on October 13, 1934, in Chania on the island of Crete. Her father, a film projectionist, relocated the family to Athens when she was three. Nazi occupation of Greece during World War II, when he participated in the resistance, and the ensuing four-year civil war shaped much of her early years. At age twelve she began vocal lessons and regularly tuned in to radio broadcasts featuring American jazz artists such as Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, and Billie Holiday, alongside French chanson figures including Édith Piaf. Accepted into the Athens Conservatory in 1950, she pursued classical studies with operatic emphasis until 1957, when officials discovered her nighttime work with a jazz ensemble and expelled her.

Mouskouri then performed jazz in nightclubs, concentrating on Ella Fitzgerald repertoire. In 1958 she encountered emerging songwriter Manos Hadjidakis, who became her popular-music mentor, and cut an EP of four of his pieces for a small label. The next year she sang his “Kapou Iparchi Agapi Mou,” co-written with poet Nikos Gatsos, at the first Greek Song Festival; the number captured first prize and raised her profile. At the 1960 festival she presented two further Hadjidakis compositions, “Timoria” and “Kiparissaki,” which shared top honors. Shortly afterward she debuted abroad at the Mediterranean Song Festival in Barcelona with Costa Yannidis’s “Xypna Agapi Mou,” again winning first prize and drawing interest from international labels. She ultimately signed with the Paris-based Philips-Fontana organization.

Mouskouri contributed to the soundtrack of a 1961 German documentary on Greece, yielding the German single “Weisse Rosen aus Athen,” adapted by Hadjidakis from a folk melody; it sold over a million copies in Germany and, after translation into multiple languages, became one of her signature pieces. In 1962 producer Quincy Jones brought her to New York to record the album of American standards The Girl from Greece Sings. Soon afterward she achieved a substantial U.K. hit with the pop standard “My Colouring Book.” Settling permanently in Paris in 1963, she recorded a Greek-language album and represented Luxembourg in that year’s Eurovision Song Contest with “À Force de Prier,” which became an international success and earned her France’s Grand Prix du Disque. Composer Michel Legrand supplied two further major French hits, “Les Parapluies de Cherbourg” in 1964 and “L’Enfant au Tambour” in 1965. Also in 1965 she released her second English-language album, Nana Sings, and found a supporter in Harry Belafonte, who toured with her through 1966 and joined her on the live duo album An Evening with Belafonte/Mouskouri.

Her 1967 French album Le Jour Où la Colombe elevated her to superstardom in that market and contained core repertoire pieces such as “Au Coeur de Septembre,” “Adieu Angélina,” “Robe Bleue, Robe Blanche,” and a version of “Le Temps des Cerises.” A recording of “Guantanamera” also succeeded, and she made her first headline appearance at Paris’s Olympia theater that year, presenting a program that mixed French pop, Greek folk, and Hadjidakis material. Turning toward Britain, she hosted the 1968 variety series Nana and Guests; the following year she issued her debut full-length British LP, Over & Over, a major hit that remained on the charts nearly two years. Maintaining an intensive international touring schedule from the late 1960s onward, she expanded her global reach throughout the 1970s. In France she issued a string of best-selling albums including Comme un Soleil, Une Voix Qui Vient du Coeur, Vielles Chansons de France, and Quand Tu Chantes, and collaborated with Serge Lama on a successful “Habanera” from Bizet’s Carmen. Her 1975 German album Sieben Schwarze Rosen enjoyed strong sales, while the English-language Book of Songs sold millions worldwide.

The 1979 English album Roses & Sunshine performed especially well in Canada. In 1981 she scored a worldwide hit with “Je Chante Avec Toi, Liberté,” which appeared in several languages after its French triumph and supported the successful German album Meine Lieder Sind Meine Liebe. Returning to Greece in 1984 for her first homeland concert since 1962, she thereafter recorded Greek-language albums for the local market. The 1986 single “Only Love,” theme for a BBC series, topped the U.K. charts and succeeded in its French version “L’Amour en Héritage.” That year she also targeted Spanish-speaking audiences with the hit “Con Todo el Alma,” popular in Spain, Argentina, and Chile. Five albums in different languages appeared in 1987, and the next year she revisited her conservatory background with the double-LP The Classical Nana, also issued as Nana Classique, containing favored opera excerpts.

Her 1991 English compilation Only Love: The Best of Nana Mouskouri became her strongest-selling U.S. release. Throughout the 1990s she sustained a demanding worldwide touring pace while recording in French, German, Spanish, English, and Greek. Early-decade projects included the spirituals collection Gospel (1990), the Spanish Nuestras Canciones, the multilingual Mediterranean set Côté Sud, Côté Coeur (1992), Falling in Love Again: Great Songs from the Movies—which reunited her with Harry Belafonte on two tracks—and the French Dix Mille Ans Encore. Public-service activities included serving as a UNICEF spokesperson beginning in 1993 and election to the European Parliament as a Greek representative from 1994 to 1999. Additional albums followed in 1996–1997: the Spanish Nana Latina, featuring duets with Julio Iglesias and Mercedes Sosa; the English Return to Love; and the French pop set Hommages. In 1997 she presented a high-profile Concert for Peace at New York’s Cathedral of St. John the Divine, later released as an album and broadcast on PBS. Numerous retrospective collections appeared internationally, among them elaborate box sets in France and Germany.

After moving to Switzerland, Mouskouri continued international touring into the new century. In 2011 she released two albums under the Nana & Friends banner, one devoted to Greek-island songs and the other featuring collaborations with French artists. Further honors arrived, including an honorary degree from McGill University in 2013 and Germany’s Echo Music Prize in 2015 for lifetime achievement. She marked sixty years as a performer with the 2018 covers album Forever Young, interpreting songs by Leonard Cohen, Bryan Adams, Bob Dylan, Amy Winehouse, and others, and supported the project with a tour.