Dimitrios Semsis

Who was Dimitrios Semsis?

Dimitrios Semsis or "Dimitrios Salonikios" was a Greek violinist born Dimitrios Koukoudeas in Strumica, in the Salonica Vilayet of the Ottoman Empire.

At the end of 19th century, he joined the band of a circus, which was traveling all over the Balkans. In 1908 married his first wife Sonhoula Bochor Hanne and become his daughter Enriquette, cousin of Eskenazi Rosa, in the year about 1910. Later, he joined other traveling bands and played in several places such as Turkey, Syria, Egypt, Sudan and elsewhere. After the end of the World War I, as Strumica remained in the kingdom of Serbia, Dimitrios Semsis' family moved to Thessaloniki. In 1923 he married Dimitra Kanoula and had four children. At the beginning of 1927 he moved to Athens. By that time he took the nickname "Salonikios", probably because some agents from recording companies thought that his origin was from Thessaloniki. He is the first instrument player that his name is written on the disc labels. At the end of the 1920s, Dimitrios Semsis was Recording Director of HMV and Columbia. He participated in hundreds of recordings of folk, rebetic and smyrnaic songs between 1924 and 1931.