53 Facts About Demetrio Stratos

In 1967, Demetrio Stratos joined the Italian beat band I Ribelli, and in 1972, founded Area.

Demetrio Stratos studied ethnomusicology, vocal extensions, Asian music chant, compared musicology, the problem of ethnic vocality, psychoanalysis, the relationship between spoken language and the psyche, the limits of the spoken language.

Demetrio Stratos died in New York City Memorial Hospital on 13 June 1979 at the age of 34.

Demetrio Stratos's self-proclaimed mission was to free vocal expression from what he considered to be the slavery of language and classical lyrical melody.

Demetrio Stratos considered the exploration of vocal potential as a tool of psychological and political liberation.

Demetrio Stratos's work is considered by many critics and vocalists as important in the progression of experimental and novel vocal techniques.

Demetrio Stratos was born as Efstratios Demetriou in Alexandria, Egypt, on 22 April 1945 to Greek parents Janis Demetriou and Athanassia Archondoyorghi.

Demetrio Stratos spent his first 13 years in Alexandria where he studied piano and accordion at the prestigious Conservatoire National d'Athenes, and studied English at the British Boys School.

Demetrio Stratos's family was of Greek Orthodox religion, so during his infancy he listened to religious Byzantine songs, traditional Arabic music and then the early beginnings of rock and roll.

Fortuitously, the original singer of the group was unable to sing one night due to a minor car accident, so Demetrio Stratos stepped in to replace him, which began his venture into singing.

Demetrio Stratos's repertoire at that time was a mixture of soul, blues and rhythm and blues.

Demetrio Stratos noticed by watching his daughter that a child initially "plays" and "experiments" with her or his own voice, but then the richness of the vocal sound gets lost in the acquisition of verbal language.

Demetrio Stratos recorded many records with Area, as well as in collaboration with Gianni Sassi, the owner of Cramps Records, on solo artist albums.

In 1973, Demetrio Stratos took part in the eighth Biennale de Paris, and Area released their first studio album, Arbeit macht frei, taken from the inscription that was on the gate at the entrance of Auschwitz Nazi concentration camp.

Demetrio Stratos gradually became more and more deeply involved in the mysterious world of vocal sounds, resuming and widening his immense work on the importance of the voice in the Asian and Middle Eastern civilizations.

At the festival of the proletarian youth in Lambro Park, Milan, Demetrio Stratos introduced the Mesostics in front of 15,000 people.

Demetrio Stratos gradually became more and more deeply involved in the mysterious world of vocal sounds, widening his immense work on the importance of the voice in the Asian and Middle Eastern civilizations.

In 1976, Demetrio Stratos released his first studio album as a solo artist, Metrodora, which was the result of his vocal studies and research.

In Paris, Demetrio Stratos contacted Emile Leipp, the director of the Laboratory of Acoustics at the Paris VI University.

Demetrio Stratos spoke at several seminars at the Istituto di Glottologia e Fonetica at the University of Padua, in Italy, formulating his own and true "pedagogy of the voice".

Demetrio Stratos underlined the link between language and the psyche, and he highlighted the connection between them with the sounds made by his own vocal cords, which he considered to be a musical instrument.

Demetrio Stratos found the time to do some live performances at the "Arsenale" Theater and at the Marconi's Gallery in Milan.

Demetrio Stratos came to me with a manager who told me that the Master Demetrio Stratos wanted to learn my singer's techniques.

Demetrio Stratos stayed with me for two hours and he learned everything.

Demetrio Stratos was invited by the local Ministry of Culture to meet the delegation of Mongolian musicians and to participate in discussion on vocal methods in East Asian music.

Demetrio Stratos was invited by John Cage to teach a course related to the possibilities of the human voice for the Center for Experimental Music at University of San Diego in California.

In January 1979, Demetrio Stratos recorded Le Milleuna, a one-hour interpretation with lyrics written by Nanni Balestrini, with the mimic interpretation and action performed by Valeria Magli.

Demetrio Stratos planned the show "Rock' n' roll Exhibition" with Paolo Tofani and Mauro Pagani in order to bring back to the light the great musicians of the '50s rock and roll years.

Also with France Culture, in the series "Poesie Ininterrompue" directed by Claude Royet-Journoud, Demetrio Stratos had a long interview with Daniel Charles, where he performed many vocal sequences and provided explanations.

Demetrio Stratos left Area in order to dedicate himself exclusively to vocal research, experimentation, and the pursuit of his solo career.

Demetrio Stratos's death cut short a collaboration with poet Antonio Porta, another Novissimo, on a project set to the music of Stratos' voice upsetting not only the avant-garde and experimental musicians who saw Stratos as one of their most important and representative members, but the entire show business community.

People wanted to believe that Demetrio Stratos had died due to daring too much and wandering outside the limits of human possibilities, as if he was a modern Icarus, punished for flying too close to the Sun.

Demetrio Stratos' memorial, inscribed with the beginning of the Odyssey: "Musa, parlami di quell'uomo di multiforme ingegno", is at the Cemetery of Scipione Castello, a little village that is a fraction of S maggiore Terme, a town in northern Italy, which is located in the province of Parma, in the Emilia-Romagna region.

In 2002, the Italian progressive rock band Picchio dal Pozzo discovered the tape recordings made in 1979 by the band with Demetrio Stratos performing at the IPPAI Theatre in Genoa, Italy.

Demetrio Stratos' performances were featured on Picchio dal Pozzo's 2004 album, Pic_nic @ Valdapozzo, whose songs are built around Demetrio Stratos' voice.

The effect is particularly striking on the song "Epitaffio", in which Demetrio Stratos creates a sweet melody with his "Flautofonie" technique, while a subtle beat, harmony and night sounds are provided very gently as not to shadow the voice.

La voce Stratos is a book and a documentary on the life and career of Demetrio Stratos released in 2009 and directed by Luciano D'Onofrio and Monica Affatato, and with the collaboration of Stratos' wife Daniela Ronconi Demetriou.

The second edition of Suonare la voce: tributo a Demetrio Stratos was held in Genoa in the same year.

Vocal gimmicks aside, Demetrio Stratos' mission was to free vocal expression from the slavery of language and pretty melodies.

Demetrio Stratos considered the exploration of vocal potential as a tool of psychological and political liberation.

Besides the official Area discography, for which Demetrio Stratos is remembered, it is important to remember his solo works, a massive set of productions full of experimentation and vocal research.

Demetrio Stratos would hold notes for long periods of time, modulate them vibrato-like, and leap and dive from low to high and back again, with pinpoint accuracy.

The amazing research of Demetrio Stratos brings many suggestions of unexplored fields of research that are still to be studied such as the particularly stimulating and innovative pre-eminence of the meaning over the meant, and the ritual value of the voice.

The "magic" sound of voice is independent from meanings, so Demetrio Stratos produces sounds without codified meanings, which yet create new possible worlds.

Demetrio Stratos carries to a dissolving of "the I" by a creatively repetitive modulation in advantage of an intersubjective union of the sources of life.

Demetrio Stratos refers to the aulos, the double-reeded flute used during the old rites in the ancient Greece; it produces two sounds and it is able to keep persons in a state of trance.

So, the Demetrio Stratos' voice-music is a sort of lay rite that produces to the listeners the ability to reach their primordial origin.

Demetrio Stratos seems to wish a participated, spontaneous and generous listening.

Perhaps, reading Gilles Deleuze, Demetrio Stratos had been convinced that the repetition was not the ill-famed co-action to repeat the obsessive neurosis, but it should become a technique to escape from the ordinary, from the temporary flux, to access to another order of truth.

Demetrio Stratos achieved a diplophony which is triplophonic, even quadraphonic.

Demetrio Stratos's vocalization became micro orchestrations without any technological amplification or manipulation.

Demetrio Stratos elevated rock singing to new heights with his vocal gymnastics.

Demetrio Stratos has released several studio albums and singles as a solo artist, and is featured on several albums recorded by other artists.