She was born on 10 February 1948 in Thessaloniki. After elementary school she went to the Fifth High School of Thessaloniki for two and a half years but had to leave, and in the following years did various jobs.
In 1970 she emigrated to Sydney with her husband and their son. For five years she worked making folk handicrafts. In 1975 she joined Themis Mexis' choir and then Timotheos Arvanitakis' choir as well, performing in concert, for the first time, songs for which she had written the lyrics.
Ever since, she has sung in many concerts for the Greek community, at the Melbourne Folk Festival, several times at the Festival of Greek Song in Melbourne, and elsewhere, while some of her songs have won prizes for the best lyrics.
In 1980 she co-founded the Greek Cultural Music Group of Australia, with the assistance of the Australia Council, and that year she gave concerts with this group to the Greek communities of Wollongong, Newcastle, Canberra and Sydney. Two years later she founded the Youth Choir of the Greek Cultural Association of New South Wales. In 1983 she toured New South Wales with the Greek Cultural Music Group of Australia, performing works of Greek composers and poets of Australia.
Apart from singing and music her interest extends to poetry. The first publication of her poems was in 1975 in the newspaper To Ethniko Vema. Since then several of her poems have been published in the periodicals Allayi, To Yofiri and SCOPP and the newspapers 0 Kosmos, To Ethniko Vema and others.
Published book:
Poetry: Chatting with the Wind, Sydney: Diogenes Publications, 1981. This poetry collection comprises her work of the period 1975-76.
As a poet and singer she took part in the 1982 Women and Arts Festival.
She contributed the Greek script for the theatre production New Sky, devised by Judith Anderson (Sydney, 1982).
Some of her poems have been translated into English by Alfred Vincent, and by Dennis Dinopoulos, Patricia Laird, Berwyn Lewis, and the poet herself, published in the journal SCOPP. She has twice been awarded grants by the Australia Council, the first time in 1980 by the Community Arts Board for writing poetry, and the second in 1983 by the Music Board to study voice production at the Conservatorium of Thessaloniki and to study choirs in Greece.
Since 1976 she has been a committee member of the Greek Cultural Association of N.S.W.
Notes and comments: Tasos Nerantzis, To Ethniko Vema, 1 December 1981, p. 7. Akropolis, 13 December 1981, p. 8 [unsigned]. George Kanarakis, Stohi (New York), Vol. 4, No. 15, 1982, p. 17. Tasos Tamis, Logus, Vol. 12, 1982, p. 25. George Tserdanis, 0 Kosmos, 25 November 1982, p. 8. Penny [Andreopoulos], O Kosmos, 27 January 1983, p. 8.
Old Toys
Secretly, when night fell
you went up like a thief to the old attic.
You were not a child, like long ago, but an old man with snowy hair.
What could you be looking for among the cobwebs? In the old trunks?
Were you looking in vain for loves
that you had buried in forgetfulness?
I see you are holding in your hands
toys, broken dreams.
You hold the mist in your palms,
toy soldiers, dolls, little cars,
you look at a thousand lost dreams of your yesterday.
Old little boy, whatever life has given you, whatever you still seek to find
among your old toys,
you want to live the dreams of your yesterday.
(Chatting with the Wind, Sydney: Diogenes Publications, 1981, p. 34)
Extract from the book Greek Voices in Australia, 1991, p. 357-358, by Professor George Kanarakis, Charles Sturt University.
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