Manos Hadjidakis
The composer of “Never on Sunday” won an Oscar and shaped modern Greek music – and did not hide his homosexuality in a conservative society.
Manos Hadjidakis grew up in Xanthi and Athens. His father died when he was a boy, and he worked in a factory and as a photographer’s assistant to support his family, while studying music and joining the resistance against the German occupation.
In 1949 he gave a famous lecture defending rebetiko, the music of the urban poor, which the middle classes despised. He combined its melodies with classical forms and created a new kind of Greek art song. He wrote music for theatre, ballet and many films. His song “Never on Sunday” (“Ta paidia tou Peiraia”) from Jules Dassin’s film of the same name won the Academy Award in 1961 and became a worldwide hit.
During the military dictatorship he lived for several years in the United States. Back in Greece he directed the national radio’s cultural programme and founded the Orchestra of Colours, which performed rarely heard music.
Hadjidakis was gay and lived without hiding it, at a time when this was hardly accepted in Greece; younger gay Greeks have described him as an important figure for their own self-understanding. He died in Athens in 1994, aged 68.