Call for papers

On the occasion of the centenary of the birth of Mikis Theodorakis (1925-2021) and Manos Hatzidakis (1925-1994), the Department of Music Studies of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens is organizing a two-day conference entitled “Mikis Theodorakis – Manos Hatzidakis: Musical Dialogues. Minoan Hatzatzakis-Hodjacki’s “Miscellaneous Miscellaneous Music Conferences”. The conference will take place on Thursday 23 and Friday 24 October 2025 in the halls of the main building of the University of Athens.

As two iconic figures of Greek music, with an international appeal, Mikis Theodorakis and Manos Hatzidakis defined the nature of post-war music in Greece, on the one hand by contributing to the aesthetic and ideological acceptance by the broader urban strata and intellectuals of urban popular music, primarily the rebetiko, and, on the other hand, by creating the so-called “art popular music”, in which learned poetry encounters forms and idioms deriving from popular music, and in which popular music meets genres and forms associated with Western art music (in the case of Theodorakis). Their works managed to unify (to a great extent) the fragmented, in prewar times, musical space, through the phenomenal – by Greek standards – appeal it had on Greek society in its entirety, and under intense political conditions and social fermentations and turbulence. At the same time, it functioned as a means of symbolic representation (in unified artistic terms) of competing social groups and ideologies.

Given that existing scholarship dedicated to the work of Theodorakis and Hatzidakis is disproportionately small in relation to their resonance and their historical significance, and at the same time disproportionately small compared to biographical and journalistic research on these figures, the conference aims to remedy this lacuna by engaging scholars from the disciplines of Music Studies, aesthetics, literary theory, dance and cinema, sociology, political theory, anthropology, cultural studies and gender studies. To this end, papers may address (but should not necessarily be limited to) the following topics:

• Theodorakis, Hatzidakis and:
  – rebetiko song
  – Greek traditional music
  – Laiko (popular) and elafrolaiko (“light” popular) song
  – elafro (“light song”)
  – Byzantine music (especially in relation to Theodorakis)
  – the National School of Music
  – Western art (classical) music in its entirety• Entechno laiko (“art popular” song): issues of definition, terminology, music analysis, aesthetics, ideology
• “Artistic folk song”: issues of definition, terminology, musical analysis, aesthetics and ideology
• Theodorakis, Hatzidakis and the “artful folk song”
• Theodorakis, Hadjidakis and the music industry (radio, cinema)
• The aesthetic perceptions of Theodorakis and Hadjidakis
• The political views of Theodorakis and Hadjidakis
• The political and institutional action of Theodorakis and Hadjidakis
• Theodorakis, Hadjidakis and Greek society, in its structural constitution and its historical change (civil war, dictatorship, post-civil war)
• The songs and instrumental music of Theodorakis and Hadjidakis: issues of musical analysis, aesthetics and reception
• The film, theatre and dance music (ballets) of Theodorakis and Hadjidakis
• Theodorakis and Hadjidakis from the point of view of their colleagues (composers, visual artists, writers and poets, filmmakers, choreographers)
• Theodorakis and Hadjidakis from the point of view of music criticism

The joint examination of the two composers is encouraged, where possible.

The languages of the conference are Greek and English.

The conference is open to university professors, PhDs, doctoral candidates and recognised researchers. Applicants are invited to send an abstract of a maximum of 300 words and a short CV of 200 words to centenaryconf.uoatms@gmail.com.

Deadline for submission of proposals: 16 May 2025.

The results of the reviewing process will be announced by 16 June 2025.

There is no conference fee.

Organizing and scientific committee

Minas I. Alexiadis
Areti Andreopoulou
Anastasia Georgaki
Eleni Kallimopoulou
Giorgos Kitsios
Flora Kritikou
Katerina Levidou
Lambros Liavas
Markos Tsetsos
Ioannis Valiantzas