Greek Composer Notis Mavroudis Dies in Horrific Accident

Greek composer Notis Mavroudis died after a horrific accident at his home at Mount Pelion on Tuesday. He was seventy-seven years old.

Mavroudis was killed when he fell from a height of three meters off a makeshift scaffolding he used to do housework.

Mavroudis was a songwriter, guitarist, columnist, and radio producer. He worked with many distinguished musicians and was honored with international awards.

“If something characterized our father Notis Mavroudis as a person, it was his kindness, his morals, and his modesty,” his son, Haris Mavroudis, posted on Facebook.

Who was Notis Mavroudis

Mavroudis was born in 1945. He spent the first two years of his life in prison next to his mother, who was a political prisoner.

In 1958, he started guitar lessons at the National Conservatoire, the premier Performing Arts educational institution in Greece and got his diploma in 1969 with honors.

In 1970, he settled in Italy, where he was assigned the chair of classical guitar at the Scuola Ciciva di Milano. He taught there until 1975. In 1970, he also attended the courses of the Santiago de Compostella Academy in Spain with Jose Tomas.

He permanently settled in Athens in 1975 and began teaching classical guitar at the National Conservatoire that year.

His first album was released in 1964 with the songs “Akri den ehi o ouranos” (“There is no limit to the sky”) and “Ta yortina sou forese” (“Put on your best clothes”), with lyrics by Yiannis Kakoulidis and performance by Giorgos Zografos.

In 1968, he set to music Odysseus Elytis’ “Heroic and Lamenting Song for the Lost Lieutenant of Albania,” a folk oratorio for voice choir and orchestra.

In 1977, this was followed by poems by Manos Hadjidakis that he set to music in the album Child of the Earth. In 1985, the album Eros anikate mahan se poesis by Ilias Petropoulos was released.

Since 1990, Mavroudis wrote songs for a children’s choir and collaborated with the Dimitris Typaldou Children’s Choir.