Notis Mavroudis: Mourning the death of the great musician – The tragic accident and the last prophetic post

Greece’s artistic world has been shocked by the tragic death of the great Notis Mavroudis, who was mortally wounded on Tuesday night while doing work at his home in Pelion.

As reported by local media, Notis Mavroudis was killed when he fell from a height of three meters resulting in fatal head injuries.

According to the same information, the 77-year-old musician placed a piece of wood on the railings of the yard of his house and stepped on it, perhaps to fix something, but either lost his balance or became dizzy and fell off the makeshift scaffolding.

Noti Mavroudis was first seen by his wife, who was also the one who called an ambulance to Koukourava, where the musician’s house was in Pelion, but the rescuers who arrived at the scene were unable to do anything as he had already breathed his last.

As his son, Haris, announced in a modest message posted on Facebook on behalf of the family of the deceased musician, the civic funeral of Noti Mavroudis will be held in the next few days in Halandri.

Lament for the great musician

Social media has already been filled with emotional farewells for the great Nikos Mavroudis from people who either knew him personally or had worked with him.

His last post

A few days ago, precisely on the New Year of 2023, in a… prophetic post on his Facebook welcoming the new year and titled “The future of our past”, he wondered “if we can turn a new page with the beginning of 2023 erasing those of ’22”, expressing at the same time “so many questions, so many anxieties about what the future holds”.

Who was Notis Mavroudis?

He was born in 1945. He spent the first two years of his life in prison next to his mother, who was a political prisoner. In 1958, he started guitar lessons at the National Conservatory with teacher Dimitris Fabas and got his diploma in 1969 with honors.

In 1970 he settled in Italy, where he was assigned the chair of classical guitar at the Scuola Ciciva di Milano, where he taught until 1975. In 1970 he also attended the courses of the Santiago de Compostella Academy in Spain with Jose Tomas.

In 1975 he permanently settled in Athens and from that year he started teaching classical guitar at the National Conservatory. In the years 1975, 1977 and 1979 he gave recitals at the Classical Guitar Festival of Esztergom, Hungary. In 1978 he took part in the international Festival of Political Song in East Berlin and in the 11th World Youth Festival in Havana, Cuba. As a composer and soloist he has given many recitals in many countries (Greece, Italy, Finland, Switzerland, Germany, Hungary, Austria, Cuba).

As a professor at the National Conservatory of Athens, he had as students several popular artists such as Manolis Androulidakis, Sokratis Malamas, Panagiotis Margaris, Giorgos Melas, Lambros Dousikos, Dimitris Sotiropoulos, etc.. From 1994, he assumed the duties of president of the Department of Letters and Arts of Culture and from 1995 he took over as artistic director at the Patras International Festival.

Notis Mavroudis entered the discography in 1964 with the songs “Akri den ehi o ouranos” [There is no limit to the sky] and “Ta yortina sou forese” [Put on your best clothes], with lyrics by Yiannis Kakoulidis and performed by Giorgos Zografos. In 1966 he wrote music for theater and cinema.

In 1968 he set to music Odysseus Elytis’ Heroic and Lamenting Song for the Lost Lieutenant of Albania, a folk oratorio for voice-choir and orchestra.

In 1976, the album Paintings by Theofilos with lyrics by Akos Daskalopoulos, inspired by Theofilos’ paintings, was released. In 1977, he set poems by Manos Hadjidakis to music on the album Child of the Earth.

In 1985, the album Eros anikate mahan se poesis by Ilias Petropoulos is released.

Since 1990 he wrote songs for a children’s choir, and collaborated with the Dimitris Typaldou Children’s Choir.

In 1998, the discs with music for the theatrical performances “Oliver Twist” (with his music and songs for the performance of “Thiaso 81”) and “Iphigenia en Avlidi” (with music and 3 songs, for the performance of the tragedy of the same name) were released by the “Thymelis” Troupe.

Between 1999-2008, together with his student Panagiotis Margaris, he recorded the award-winning Cafe de l’art series, in which they arranged well-known songs from the Greek and international repertoire, for two guitars.

In the same spirit, in 2018 he launched the Café Latino series with Giorgos Tossikian.

In 2019, IANOS published the work “Agrypno feggari”, Greek poets from the 19th and 20th centuries set to music.

In 1999, the album Luna Park is released, with the Children’s Choir of Dimitris Typaldos and the participation of Giorgos Dalaras. In 2002, he wrote songs for women’s voices, on the album In the echo of love, in which big names such as Haris Alexiou, Glykeria, Eleftheria Arvanitaki, Elli Paspala participated.

In 2006, together with Ilias Katsoulis, he wrote songs that “narrate” the stories of great Greek artists (Gr. Bithikotsis, St. Haskil, Roza Eskenazi, Marina Ninou, Fleury Dantonaki, Sotiria Bellou, etc.) and were released on the album Carte Postale.

Notis Mavroudis has collaborated with poets such as Odysseas Elytis, Yiannis Kakoulidis, Ilias Petropoulos, Akos Daskalopoulos, the composer Manos Hatzidakis, and singers such as Thanasis Gaifillias, George Zografos, Arleta, Popi Asteriadis, Eleni Vitali, George Moufluzeli, Yannis Samsiari, Nena Venetsanou, Petro Pandi, Costa Thomaidis, Stamati Kraounakis, Tania Tsanaklidou, Manoli Mitsia, Haris Alexiou, George Dalara, Glykeria, Panteli Thalassino, Elli Paspala, Anastasia Moutsatsou, etc.