The Greek composer Mikes Theodorakis, author of the soundtrack of the 1964 cult film 'Zorba the Greek' and icon of resistance to the dictatorship of the colonels, has died at the age of 96. This was reported by a source at the Athens hospital where he was hospitalized.
A prolific talent and political maverick, Theodorakis has always been appreciated in his home country and around the world for his inspiring music and his challenge to the regime that ruled Greece from 1967 to 1974.
Already at the age of 18, when he was studying at the Athens Conservatory, he joined the Resistance to the Nazi-Fascist occupation and for this he was arrested and tortured. During the civil war he was locked up in a prison camp.
Once free, in 1950, after graduating from the conservatory, he began his career: he traveled, stayed in Paris and Moscow, conducted a symphony orchestra but, above all, began the work on popular music that would make him famous.
Theodorakis was a prolific and multifaceted composer, who collaborated with three Nobel Prize-winning poets, Pablo Neruda, Odysseus Elitis, George Seferis, with a symbol of free Africa as Sedar Senghor, wrote symphonic works, oratorios, ballet music, songs and collections of ballads.
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