George Dalaras - Collaborations and Styles

Collaborations and Styles

Since the 1960s, George Dalaras has recorded more than 120 records. He has sung numerous different Greek music styles (e.g. rebetiko, laïkó, Latin, pop), Israeli and Arabic music, and religious music. He has collaborated with many contemporary Greek composers, including Mikis Theodorakis, Stavros Kouyioumtzis, Manos Loizos, Apostolos Kaldaras, Stavros Xarhakos and Manos Hadjidakis to Christos Nikolopoulos. He also discovered and supported little Areti Ketime, whose first CD album he produced. Apart from his prominent singing career, Dalaras is considered to be one a talented musician as he plays most of the stringed instruments of a Greek folk band with great success, including the guitar, bouzouki, baglama, tzoura and outi. He has accompanied Al Di Meola and Paco de Lucía, among others. Dalaras' most important projects include collaborations with several international singers, including British singer Sting, even releasing a duet with Sting ("Mad About You"). He has also collaborated with Pyx Lax, Bruce Springsteen, Jethro Tull, Emma Shapplin, Goran Bregovic, Apostolis Anthimos, Dulce Pontes, Andriana Babali and many others. Dalaras moved from his homestay label of Minos EMI in favour of Universal Music Greece in 2006, thus ending an almost 40 year collaboration.

At 2000 George Dalaras discovered a new local orchestra that specialized at traditional "Smirneiko" and "Rebetiko" songs. The orchestra's name was "Estoudiantina Neas Ionias" and it came from Nea Ionia, a city near Volos. Dalaras pulled Estoudiantina in the light of publicity and make it known to the Greek public. Since then Estoudiantina has become one of the most important and famous orchestras in Greece. Estoudiantina's repertoire now also includes Modern Greek, Greek Laiko, and Mediterranean.