Alekos Karavitis

Who was Alekos Karavitis?

Alekos Karavitis was born in Aktounta, a small village in the region of Aghios Vasileios, prefecture of Rethymnon in Crete. A talented child, he very early fell in love with and started learning to play the lyra, the heart instrument of Cretan music, a descendant of the ancient string mini-harp of Apollo. At the age of 24, he married Chryssoula Gartzolaki from the nearby village of Yanniou and moved to Athens. They had three children, two girls and a boy.

He became a virtuoso of the lyra and developed the ambition of spreading his island's music throughout the world. He even composed his own melodies, which became widely known.

Although he was self-employed in various businesses, every year in Athens he staged the very successful "Festival of Lyra." His passion for Cretan music also spurred him to coordinate international presentations of Greek folk music and dance, bringing together famous societies of the time such as Koula Pratsika and Dora Stratou and other Hellenic institutions with his own Cretan group and others from all over Greece.