¶ Lena Platonos: The Pioneer of Greek Electronic Music
¶ Introduction
Lena Platonos (Greek: Λένα Πλάτωνος; born October 21, 1951) is a Greek pianist, singer and composer of electronic and art music. She took a leading role in the Athens electronic music scene of the 1980s, and her work has constituted a lasting inspiration for Greek electronic musicians in the subsequent decades. Lena is active until today and her work has become more and more sophisticated.
¶ Early Life
Born in Heraklion, Crete, Lena is the daughter of composer George Platon and Antigone Astrinaki. Raised in Athens, she started showing an interest in music from a young age. Lena attended the Athens Conservatoire and graduated with a degree in classical piano, an influence that remains palpable in her body of work.
From a young age, she was deeply influenced by her father, a well-known composer and first pianist in the Greek National Opera. He was a consummate storyteller and musician. He would weave intricate fairy tales, accompanied by his own improvised piano compositions, which served as Lena's earliest introduction to the interconnected worlds of narrative and music. These formative experiences were akin to her own "Summer Hill," a metaphorical free space where she absorbed the full emotional spectrum of life through stories and music. Her emotional attachment to her father fueled her passion for music, poetry, and storytelling, elements that would later become central to her own creative works, starting from "The Masks of the Sun." Through their shared listening sessions of classical music, her father would offer interpretive guidance, teaching her to understand the emotive nuances in compositions like Beethoven's "Shepherd." This early musical education deeply shaped Lena's artistic path, imbuing her work with a blend of narrative depth and musical innovation.
¶ Studies
Lena Platonos began her professional musical journey at the Athens Conservatoire, studying under Phoebe Vallinda and Marika Papaioannou. By the age of eighteen, she had already won First Prize in the Katie Papaioannou Contest and soon left for advanced studies in Vienna and Berlin.
During her studies in Vienna and Berlin, Platonos was exposed to Middle Eastern music, jazz, and rock. This eclectic range of influences would inform her own unique musical style, which combined minimalist electronic soundscapes with poetic, surrealist lyrics about relationships, dreams, and the societies of the future.
During those hippie years, I was listening to Uriah Heep, Led Zeppelin, Beatles, Jethro Tull, and at one of the last concerts I decided that this was the music that expressed me and that's what I wanted to do with my life, not study piano
A turning point for Lena happened in Salzburg when she met a young man who intended to create a tourist-themed film for Austrian TV. Though the film never materialized, the young man's English poems inspired Platonos to compose. Starting in 1971, they collaborated to turn these poems into songs. This ignited her imagination with orchestration ideas. From that moment on, her thoughts were consumed with the creative process, pondering the ideal instrumentation for each song and finding herself engrossed in a new creative chapter of her life.
¶ Career
She returned to Greece amid the dictatorship and collaborated with Heracles Triantaphyllidis and his band "DNA," before making a final return from Berlin in 1978. During her tenure at the Third Programme of the Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation (ERT), where she worked alongside her then-husband Dimitris Marangopoulos, she developed a close professional relationship with Manos Hatzidakis, the then director. She collaborated to create the children's musical show Lilipoupoli. The show was a huge success, and its catchy songs and innovative music videos made Platonos a household name in Greece.
With "Lilipoupolis" I started my discography. I heard my songs from a long play record and my voice and I was happy, but, on the other hand, I felt great losses because there had been great endings in my life.
Lena has recorded 21 albums so far (solo or with other artists), starting with Sabotage in 1981, with Yiannis Palamidas, Savina Yannatou, and lyrics by Marianina Kriezi, her colleague from “Lilipoupolis”.
Her 1984 album "Gallop" was groundbreaking, incorporating synthesized sounds and poetic lyrics. It was one of the first Greek albums to utilize synthesizers and drum machines, which marked her as an innovator in the world of electronic music. She also integrated poetic verses and her own narrations to create an unprecedented blend of music and spoken word, thus opening up new avenues in electronic music composition.
Lena continued to evolve her sound throughout the late '80s and '90s, experimenting with various electronic sub-genres and instrumentation. Her music has inspired a generation of electronic musicians and has been widely sampled and remixed by international DJs. Her work has been praised by critics for its originality, creativity, and emotional depth. She has also collaborated with many other renowned artists, including Dionysis Savvopoulos, Dimitra Galani, and Maria Farantouri.
In 2013, she was approached by producers from Germany to release one of her songs, originally titled "Blood Shadows from a Distance." She agreed to rename it "Shadows of Blood" and, without much concern for the business aspect, gave her consent for its release. The song was produced in limited quantities and sold for high prices, up to 300 euros each, garnering a significant following abroad despite language barriers and receiving rave reviews.
She performed concerts abroad and found a particularly enthusiastic audience in Berlin, Germany. Many in the audience connected deeply with the music and the emotive quality of her voice, which fostered a sense of intimacy. Platonos aimed to engage her listeners directly, a goal she felt was successfully achieved, especially in these international performances.
¶ Emily Dickinson by Lena Platonos
In 2015, Lena took on a new creative endeavor, composing songs inspired by the poetry of Emily Dickinson. Drawn to Dickinson after feeling a sense of connection with the poet's life and writing style, Platonos sought to explore a brighter aspect of Dickinson, setting aside the poet's darker themes of death for potential future work. Collaborating with her partner Stergios Cirliagos, Platonos auditioned female singers and eventually chose Athina Routsis and Sissi Makropoulou (Rada), whose voices resonated with Dickinson's tone. They released the song 'Hope is the thing with feathers,' noting its timely relevance. She found the composing process for these Dickinson-inspired songs to be intuitively easy and successful.
In 2018, the documentary film Lambda Pi was released, chronicling Platonos' life and career, and helped to introduce Platonos' music to a new generation of listeners.
¶ Legacy
Platonos is a highly respected figure in the Greek music scene, and her work has had a profound impact on the development of electronic music in Greece. She is known for her experimental and innovative approach to music, as well as her poetic and surrealist lyrics. Her music continues to inspire and challenge listeners to this day.
¶ Lena Platonos Discography
- Sabotage (Lyra 1981, with Yiannis Palamidas and Savina Yannatou, lyrics by Marianina Kriezi).
- Karyotakis-13 Songs (Lyra 1982, with Savina Yannatou, poetry by Kostas Karyotakis).
- The '62 of Manos Hatzidakis (Lyra 1983, with Savina Yannatou).
- Sun Masks (Lyra 1984).
- The Sound and its Errors (Seirios 1985, with Savina Yannatou, based on texts by Gianni Rodari)
- Gallop (Lyra 1985, Dark Entries Records 2015 re-issue).
- Lepidoptera (Lyra 1986).
- The Emperor's Nightingale (Lyra 1989, children's opera, arrangement of the tale of Hans Christian Andersen).
- The Breaking of the Ice (Seirios 1989, with Yiannis Palamidas).
- Do Not Disturb My Circles (Akti 1991, with Katerina Kouka and Katerina Nitsopoulou).
- Breaths (Lyra 1997, with Savina Yannatou).
- The Third Doorway (MINOS 2000, with Maria Farantouri in poetry of Thodoros Poalas).
- A Thousand and One Tunes (Lyra 2000, collection).
- I Loved You (Οdos Panos 2008, CD-single).
- Diaries (Odos Panos 2008).
- Lena Platonos – Concert at the Pallas (Lyra 2010).
- Constantinos Kavafis 13 Songs (Inner Ear records 2010, with Yiannis Palamidas, in poetry of C. P. Cavafis).
- Sacred Pain (Οdos Panos 2014, with Pantelis Theodoridis and Melina Kanas).
- Balancers (Dark Entries, 2021)
- Hope Is The Thing With Feathers (We Are the Amp, 2021)
¶ Participations
- Edo Lilipoupoli (Minos 1980).
- Music for Keyboards (Music Box 1987).
- Retrospection '63-'89, by Dionyssis Savvopoulos (Polydor 1990).
- Myths of Europe, by Dimitra Galani (Minos 1991).
¶ Awards and Recognition
- First Prize in the Kaiti Papaioannou Competition (1963)
- Gold Record Award for the album Lilipoupoli (1985)
- Lifetime Achievement Award from the Greek Music Awards (2018)
Sources:
https://www.lifo.gr/culture/music/lena-platonos-apo-sampotaz-os-tin-ntikinson-ayti-einai-i-zoi-moy