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Nana Mouskouri

Nana Mouskouri

Fact Sheet

Birth NameIoanna Mouskouri
OccupationSinger  
Birthday13 October 1934 (73)
SignLibra
Birthplace  Crete, Greece
Nana Mouskouri (born 1934 in Crete, Greece) is a Greek singer and politician. She is the world's highest-selling female recording artist, recording many of her songs in many different languages, including Greek, French, English, Spanish, Italian, German, and Portuguese. She is France's number one selling artist. She is noted for her trademark eyeglasses and her songs of melancholy, longing, and sentimental musings upon love, for which the emotion of her voice is exceptionally suited.

When Mouskouri was 3, her family moved to Athens. In 1950, she was accepted at the Athens Conservatory, but she was expelled in 1957 after it was discovered that she was singing with a jazz group at night. She won first prize at the 1959 Greek Song Festival singing Manos Hadjidakis's "Kapou Iparchi Agapi Mou".

Her first hit was "The White Rose of Athens" (1961). The Girl from Greece Sings, a 1962 album produced by Quincy Jones, followed. In 1963, Mouskouri was Luxembourg's entry in the Eurovision Song Contest with "À Force de Prier". Following that, she released the English-language album Nana Sings (1965) and the French album Le Jour où la Colombe (1967).

Mouskouri was appointed a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in October 1993. She represented Greece in the European Parliament from 1994 until 1999 as a member of the largely centrist New Democracy in the European People's Party. She currently lives in Switzerland with her second husband, André Chapelle, and she still performs about 100 concerts each year. In 2004, her French record company released an unprecedented 34-CD box set of more than 600 of Mouskouri's mostly French songs. For 2005 and 2006, she plans a farewell concert tour of Europe, Australia, Asia, South America, the United States, and Canada. Mouskouri has sold more than 190 million(*) records internationally, recording about 1,500 songs in 15 languages. She has more than 300 gold and platinum albums worldwide. She started a world farewell tour in 2005, going from Europe to Australia.




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