MICHALIS TZOUGANAKIS

A lute player at the Concert Hall

An artist who has passed his early years away of Crete, who doesn’t breathe Cretan air every morning but " plays the lute so well that if he lived here who knows what musical heights he could have reached!" as say all those that have heard him performing. 

His family has safeguarded Crete ’s history and civilization,  memories of parents and grandparents, who grow more vivid if one lives abroad. Only when they returned permanently  to Greece   –Mihalis  aged eight – they realized that everything had changed, becoming more ...European. 

"My father kept his reminiscences of Crete in the ‘60s. I was feeling like being kept in a  time machine" says Michalis Tzouganakis, one of the most promising young Cretan artists. "Crete is a very special point on Earth, just think of all the great persons born there. In Greek music for instance, Mikis Theodorakis comes from Galatas in Hania, Manos Hatzidakis from Agios Vasilios in Rethimnon, Nikos Mamagkakis from Metohia Rethimnon...Now Mihalis Tzouganakis feels that nothing has really changed inside him, that his Cretan memories are still there,  but now  he has learnt to master them “ in the most conscious way”!