Dimitris Dragatakis

Who was Dimitris Dragatakis?

Dimitris Dragatakis was a Greek composer of classical music.

He was born in Platanoussa, Epirus in 1914 and studied the violin from 1930 to 1939 at the Greek National Conservatory in Athens. Later on, he switched to the viola and from 1949 started composition lessons with Leonidas Zoras and Manolis Kalomiris, receiving his diploma in 1955.

He is considered one of the most important modern Greek composers, with a personal musical idiom that is both mature and laconic. Influenced by the musical traditions of Greece and ancient Greek drama, his music also came to reflect his interest in new techniques such as free atonality, novel instrumental combinations, post-modernism, minimalism and electronic music.

He won a number of major prizes, including the Maria Callas award from the Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation in 1997 and the prestigious J. A. Papaioannou award from the Athens Academy in 1999.

He taught violin and later on theory at the Greek National Conservatory for twenty years, until he was appointed vice president of the conservatory in 1997.

He played for twenty years in the Greek National Opera as a violist and later served on the board of the Athens State Orchestra. He was vice president and honorary president of the Greek Composers Union.