Nana Mouskouri bids farewell with Athens concert

Nana Mouskouri has bid adieu to a remarkable half-century in music with a farewell concert in her native Greece at the foot of the Acropolis in Athens.

Fans filled the ancient Odeon of Herodes Atticus on Wednesday evening to hear the 73-year-old songstress -- one of the best-selling recording artists of all time -- perform from her wide repertoire.

Hours earlier, the city of Athens bestowed its gold medal on Mouskouri, who has been on a worldwide farewell tour since she announced her plans to retire three years ago.

Born on the island of Crete, the bespectacled Mouskouri has sold more than 300 million records in French, English, Germany, Greek, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Hebrew and Japanese, her record company Universal says.

She was also engaged in humanitarian work, serving as a UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) ambassador, and served as a Greek member of the European Parliament in the 1990s.


photo: Louisa Gouliamaki/AFP
source

Nana Mouskouri performed in London

To mark 45 years on stage the internationally-acclaimed star had initiated a four-year World Fairwell tour.

Her next stop was London where the star had performed to a sold-out crowd at the Royal Albert Hall on Monday 29 October.

The other dates:

01/11 Glasgow / Royal Concert Hall
03/11 Birmingham / Symphony Hall
15/11 Saarbrücken / Saarlandhalle (Germany)
17/11 Liège / Le forum (Belgium)
18/11 Esch / Rockhal (Luxembourg)
20/11 Geneva / Arena (Switzerland)
24/11 Paris / Opera Garnier (France)

Nana Mouskouri has sold more than 300 million records internationally, recording about 1,500 songs in 15 languages on 450 albums.

source:lgr.co.uk

Nana's long goodbye

author:Martin Hutchinson /Manchester Evening News

BESPECTACLED star Nana Mouskouri is instantly recognisable, and has been for more than 40 years.

In fact, She made her first record 50 years ago, and has been touring pretty much constantly since 1960. However, as she approaches her mid-seventies, she has decided to retire from touring – but not before she has thanked her loyal fans with a Farewell World Tour. (...)

She explains: “I’m not actually retiring from singing, just from touring. If people still want me to sing I will, but I just won’t be touring.

"I wanted to quit while I was still healthy.”

Speaking about her final tour she said: "It started in 2005 and will end next year in 2008. You have to take time to do the whole world and I want to take the opportunity to thank fans for listening to me for so many years.”

There’s will be a variety of songs, from my beginnings with classical music and through my pop and jazz songs. There’s ’ll be a real diversity of cultures.”

Read full article here

source:Manchester Evening News

photo:google.com

Nana Mouskouri on British Television

read also Nana's long goodbye

oikotimes.com reports:

The much loved, and much famed, Nana Mouskouri made an appearance on ITV1's popular morning show 'This Morning' earlier today. She was introduced by host Philip Scofield who said that ''the word legend is often overused these days... but this lady certainly is one''.

Nana, who speaks five languages but has sung in eleven, was complimented on this idea as a way of reaching out to people. ''It was never planned that way'' said argueably the most famous Greek musician of all time. ''I wanted to learn other languages and culture to learn more about singing''.

In total, Nana has recorded over 1350 songs in 11 different languages over her carear that has spanned 50 years. She is currently touring the world on a four-year ''Farewell Tour''. ''Life helped me to be a singer... I became a stage person, wonderful things don't last forever. It's better to say thank you to the audience, because if the audience weren't here to listen to me I wouldn't be here'' she said.

Nana was praised for never giving notice to those who said she should change who she was. Indeed, she revealed that at the 1963 Eurovision Song Contest- where she entered for Luxembourg- she was told by Harry Belafonte to lose her glasses and change her hair!

As a little bit of fun, hosts Fearne and Phil asked Nana to try on some new, more modern, glasses, which she duly did, with Philip then telling er that her original ones looked best. Nana will be back in the UK in October as part of her 'Farewell Tour'.

You can see photos of Nana on the Show here