Dimitris Dragatakis (Composer)

Dimitris Dragatakis was a Greek composer of classical music and Greek art 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 Greece's most important modern composers, with a personal musical idiom that is both mature and laconic. Influenced by the musical traditions of Greece (in particular the ones of his native Epirus) 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.

Read more at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimitris_Dragatakis