Wonderful Nana Mouskouri - The Most Global of our Global Greeks!!!

This post is a tribute to the most globally acclaimed of our Global Greek performers, UNESCO Ambassador, Nana Mouskouri, and simply features some of our favourite videos of her songs available on You Tube.

Wonderful foot tapping melodies, a few duets with some of our other Global Greeks, all aimed at getting you out of your chair and eager to start dancing, !!! OPA!!! ENJOY!

With George Chakiris - Plaisir d' Amour

 

An incredible video with Harry Belafonte and Danny Kaye... Opa Ni Na Nai - Siko Horepse Koukli Mou (ΣΗΚΟ ΧΟΡΕΨΕ ΚΟΥΚΛΙ ΜΟΥ)

Her magnificent Athena (ΑΘΗΝΑ)



Ximeroni ( ΞΗΜΕΡΩΝΕΙ) - Never on Sunday Medley with Demis Roussos



With Demis Roussos - To Yelekaki


and last but not least a beautiful ballad with Julio Inglesias - La Paloma

Our write up on Nana will come later...but in the meantime you may like to see how one of our Greek-Somethings, Greek New Zealander Sophia Economou writing in her New Zealanders in Greece blog, describes Nana's last concert under the Parthenon at the Herodus Atticus Theatre in July of 2008...

How does one describe a feeling? It’s hard unless you are a poet! Well, I would have loved to have been one on Wednesday 23 July as we sat in the ancient Herodes Atticus theatre or the Herodeion as we call it, waiting for Nana Mouskouri to start what was to be her final concert after 50 years of enchanting audiences all over the world.

There, below a gleaming Parthenon set against a brilliant blue sky which slowly acquired dusky hews we watched thousands of people streaming into this magnificent ancient theatre to take their places. It was a wonderful sight - people of all ages happily assembling to pay tribute to one of Greece's best known ambassadors. The younger generation of singers and artists like Maria Farandouri, Nikos Aliagas and Sakis Rouvas were also there to pay tribute to this great lady.

Just after 9 pm it was time for the concert to start and the screens which had been set up above the stage came to life, projecting scenes from Nana's life - pictures from childhood on, with people she loved and who loved her. Symbolic in a way because it was in the outdoor cinema where her father worked as a projectionist, as she told us later, close by in the suburb of Koukaki, that she began dreaming...dreams that would take her around the world and into millions of homes and hearts over the years ahead. One of those homes was ours...

As Nana's voice filled the theatre, memories came flooding back...

Memories of our Mt Victoria home, loving memories of the whole family, Mum, Dad, my sister Pagona and myself, with some of the usual visitors to our house sitting in front of the television to watch her BBC show every week as she sang and danced with her many and varied guests, from George Chakiris to Shari Lewis, Julio Inglesias and Marinella!

Our father adored her and had every disc he could get hold of in his record collection, and my sister and I inherited that adoration. Somehow we managed to pass it on to my 8 year old daughter, so here we all were with our good friend Maria, also from Wellington, sitting in this magnificent ancient theatre below a now illuminated Parthenon waiting for the concert to begin. (July is a month of sad memories in our household... it is the month that our father left this world, so we decided that our 'memorial service' to him and our mother this year would be to go to Nana's farewell concert.)

Those weekly 'concerts' in our living room were in both our thoughts as we sat and listened to this amazing lady give her last performance...

Read more at New Zealanders in Greece.