A Greek Movie About Eftihia Papagianopoulou – The Greek Female Lyricist , was very welcome.
Eftihia Papagianopoulou was potentially the most important female lyricist of the Greek music scene. She penned countless “laika and rembetika”(*) songs, many of which became Greek song hits and are sung and danced to even nowadays.

Papagiannopoulou was born in Aydin near Smyrna (now Izmir) in Asia Minor in 1893, which she had to abandon due to the Greco-Turkish War (1919-22) and the Great Fire of Smyrna in 1922. She emigrated to Greece and arrived by boat to Athens with her two daughters.

Initially, she was married to Kostis Nikolaidis; it was an arranged marriage with a man 20 years her senior. Papagiannopoulou divorced him shortly after arriving in Greece. She got married again in 1932 to Yorgos Pappagiannopoulos, who was the only man she really loved in her life. Read more

Although keeping hands of non-family members is not that simple in corona-times, there are always ways to…..dance!

We are looking forward to welcoming our students soon in Greece again and teaching them some Greek traditional dance steps! It is one of those afternoon activities most students love; either to really dance and learn new steps, or to just watch fellow students while listening to the music, and enjoying a glass of wine!

Below you can learn more about a traditional dance from Thrace (north-eastern Greece), called “Zonaradikos”. Read more

Χρόνια Πολλά!  In 2021 Greece celebrated a special anniversary on March 25th – Its 200 Υears Οf Ιndependence!

If you want to read more about this important National Celebration, the Greek National Anthem, useful vocabulary etc…
then click on the button below, for the article in English, Greek,
as well as a Greek -file Audio to improve your listening skills in Greek 🙂

Unfortunately, it is difficult to celebrate in a covid lockdown, so a special song was selected for this celebration 😉

To celebrate the 200 years since the Greek Revolution, the famous song of Dionysis Savvopoulos has been chosen for the official video clip of this event. See below.

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Do you like Greek music?  Σας αρέσει η ελληνική μουσική;

Maybe this is not an easy question to answer, since there are so many different genres of Greek songs and music.
Ίσως να μην είναι τόσο εύκολο να απαντήσετε σε αυτή την ερώτηση, αφού υπάρχουν πολλά είδη ελληνικής μουσικής.

You might like one particular genre, like Rembetiko, Pop, Rock, but maybe not another genre like Laika, Entechna…?
So a better question might be; which genre of Greek Music do you like? For example, do you like Greek entechna songs ?
Also with this question,  many non-Greeks will not be able to answer it, since they do not know the names or the difference between the various musical genres, neither the time-period that particular music was created in Greece.
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As you all know, in Greece there are so many wonderful songs, singers, songwriters and composers. This time, we chose for you a beautiful, traditional love song from Crete. Listen to this sweet song and the sound of the Cretan lyre! Under the video, you will find the Greek Lyrics as well as the English translation. Maybe you can sing along… Enjoy!
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Manos Hatzikadis is a Greek composer, known by every Greek. As a non-Greek, there are probably many names that pop into your head when you think about Greek music, such as Dalaras, Mouskouri, Theodorakis … but today it is time to learn more about Manos Hadzidakis.
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Antonis Remos is a popular Greek singer who has many fans in Greece, but also among the Omilo students. For many years, Remos was also one of the Greek coaches of the popular TV show “The Voice”.

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It cannot always be sunny, also in Greece there are “rainy days”! And of course, there is a Greek song that goes along with a wet day!
Listen to the beautiful rebetiko song, composed by Vassilis Tsitsanis “Raindrops are falling” «Πέφτουν της βροχής οι στάλες».
A rainy day is excellent to study Greek as well, so here we go!

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Music definitely plays a very important role in the life of Greeks. In joy and sorrow, Greeks sing. And the truth is that they have the opportunity to choose among several categories of songs, in order to express every time their feelings: there are plenty of folk songs, rebetika, laika, entexna (the Greek word ‘τέχνη’ means ‘art’, so ‘entexna’ is a category of songs with more sophisticated music and lyrics) as well as rock and pop listenings.

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Do you like to dance? If yes, do you also know the Greek traditional dances?
A well-known traditional dance which you can see or dance at every happy occasion in Greece (such as weddings, christenings, celebrations, etc.) is the “Kalamatianos dance”. Also during the Omilo Greek Language and Culture courses
, we always organize some dancing lessons for the students and practice the kalamatianos.
Here you will find an introduction about this dance, and we hope you will soon dance along 
😊

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