Michalis Kyriakou (), known by his stage-name Michalis Violaris () (born 9 January 1944 Agia Varvara, Nicosia

Cyprus Cyprus (), officially the Republic of Cyprus, is an island country in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Situated in West Asia, its cultural identity and geopolitical orientation are overwhelmingly Southeast European. Cyprus is the List of isl ...

), is a popular singer and composer of modern

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

and

Cypriot music The music of Cyprus includes a variety of traditional, Western classical and Western popular genres. Cypriot traditional music is similar to the Greek folk music, traditional music of Greek music, Greece, it is most similar to Nisiotika the son ...

. He is also a pioneer responsible for popularising in Greece Cypriot songs sung in the Cypriot dialect. His song "Ta Ryalia" (also "Ta Rialia") sung in

Cypriot Greek Cypriot Greek (, or ) is the variety of Modern Greek that is spoken by the majority of the Cypriot populace and Greek Cypriot diaspora. It is considered a divergent dialect as it differs from Standard Modern Greek in various aspects of its ...

became a hit in the top-10 of Greece in 1973.

Life and career

He grew up in

Larnaca Larnaca, also spelled Larnaka, is a city on the southeast coast of Cyprus and the capital of the Larnaca District, district of the same name. With a district population of 155.000 in 2021, it is the third largest city in the country after Nicosi ...

where he studied at the National Conservatory of Music in Larnaca, a branch of the National Conservatory of Music of Athens. In 1962 he moved to Greece where he enrolled at the school of Philosophy of

Athens University The National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA; , ''Ethnikó kai Kapodistriakó Panepistímio Athinón''), usually referred to simply as the University of Athens (UoA), is a public university in Athens, Greece, with various campuses alo ...

and eventually obtained his degree. He became part of the New Wave musical movement in Greece and his first musical cooperation was with Greek composer Yannis Spanos. His songs made Cypriot music widely popular in Greece in the 1960s and 1970s. He won third prize at the

Thessaloniki Song Festival The Thessaloniki Song Festival (, ), officially the Greek Song Festival (, ) was a Greece, Greek song festival hosted between 1959–1997 and 2005–2008. The host city of the event was initially Athens (1959–1961) but the contest was later mo ...

in 1972 and in 1974 he came in second at the same festival. Aside from his cooperation with Yannis Spanos his songs included works by Greek composers such as Giorgos Kontogiorgos,

Mimis Plessas Dimitrios "Mimis" Plessas (; 12 October 1924 – 5 October 2024) was a Greek musician, composer, conductor and pianist. Life and career Plessas was born in Athens. He attended the Lycée Léonin school in the Athens suburb of Nea Smyrni, and ...

, Yorgos Katsaros, Apostolos Kaldaras, Yorgos Mitsakis and others. In 1971 he signed with Zodiac Records, while in 1977 his records were sold under the Lyra record label. His songs include works by Greek poets Georgios Vizyinos,

Odysseas Elytis Odysseas Elytis (; , pen name of Odysseas Alepoudelis, ; 2 November 1911 – 18 March 1996) was a Greek poet, man of letters, essayist and translator, regarded as the definitive exponent of romantic modernism in Greece and the world. He is one ...

, Myrtiotissa and others. His hits include "To Delfinokoritso", "Halalin tou", "Ta Karavakia", "Ta matia sou Katerinio", "Mia xanthia ap' ti Mytilini", "Irthes epses", "Aspra Karavia", "Ti Lozani ti Kozani", "An voulitho na s' arnitho", "Mavromalloussa Kopellia", and others. He is considered one of the most popular people born in Cyprus.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Violaris, Mihalis 1944 births Living people 20th-century Cypriot male singers Modern Greek-language singers of Cyprus Cypriot actors Cypriot singer-songwriters Musicians from Nicosia People from Larnaca Thessaloniki Song Festival winners