Manolis Kalomiris

Telemachus Odysseides

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Composer (1883 – 1962)

Musician and composer Manolis Kalomiris is heralded as one of the most important composers in modern Greek history. He is the founder of the Greek National School of Music and one of the musicians who helped create the identity of the Greek music.

Kalomiris made his debut in 1908 as a composer in one of the most renowned concerts of the Odeon of Athens. He wrote a total of 222 works, including operas, orchestral music, symphonies, songs, chorals, room music etc. His most famous ones, The Mother’s Ring (1917) and Symphony of Leventia (1929) have received significant attention outside Greece. Other important works include The Protomastoras (1915) and Magivotana (1912-1913), a series of poems by Kostis Palamas set to music. His music was influenced by a multitude of factors, namely Wagner, national Russian music, the Greek demotic songs and by Greek poets such as Angelos Sikelianos and Nikos Kazantzakis.

Apart from the Greek National School of Music, Kalomiris also founded the Greek Odeon and co-founded the Union of Greek Composers. He served for the first time as Director of the National Opera in 1945, was elected member of the Academy of Athens, the first musician to achieve such a distinction and served as Inspector Archmusician of the army. Kalomiris was a pedagogue of music and scholar; he wrote numerous children’s books on the theory of music and taught in the University of Athens. In this way, he became the founder of the Greek pedagogic system of music.

His influence on the Greek music in the first half of the 20th century was enormous not only as a musician and a composer, but also as a pedagogue, a music critic, an author and a manager, the main representative who shaped the national Greek music.

Bibliography

  1. Μανώλης Καλομοίρης. Σαν σήμερα. Sansimera.gr. Web. Retrieved on March 19, 2017.
  2. Politopoulos, H. The Composer. Manolis Kalomiris. Kalomiris.gr. Web. December, 1999. Retrieved on March, 19, 2017.
  3. Tsetsos, Markos. Ο ΜΑΝΩΛΗΣ ΚΑΛΟΜΟΙΡΗΣ ΚΑΙ ΟΙ ΜΟΥΣΙΚΟΙ ΘΕΣΜΟΙ. Tar.gr. Web. Retrieved on March 19, 2017.
Manolis Kalomiris