Nana Mouskouri became a spokesperson for UNICEF in 1993 and was elected to the European Parliament as a Greek deputy from 1994 to 1999.
42 Facts About Nana Mouskouri
2.
Nana Mouskouri was born on 13 October 1934 in Chania, Crete, where her father, Constantine, worked as a film projectionist in a local cinema; her mother, Alice, worked in the same cinema as an usherette.
3.
Nana Mouskouri's family sent her and her older sister Eugenia to the Athens Conservatoire.
4.
The sister conceded that Jenny had the better voice, but Nana Mouskouri was the one with the true inner need to sing.
5.
Nana Mouskouri has said that a medical examination revealed she only has one functioning vocal cord and this could well account for her remarkable singing voice, as opposed to her breathy, raspy speaking voice.
6.
Nana Mouskouri's father became part of the anti-Nazi resistance movement in Athens.
7.
Nana Mouskouri studied classical music with an emphasis on singing opera.
8.
Nana Mouskouri began singing with her friends' jazz group at night.
9.
Nana Mouskouri subsequently left the Conservatoire and began performing at the Zaki club in Athens.
10.
Nana Mouskouri began singing jazz in nightclubs with a bias towards Ella Fitzgerald repertoire.
11.
The song won first prize, and Nana Mouskouri began to be noticed.
12.
In 1961, Nana Mouskouri performed the soundtrack of a German documentary about Greece.
13.
Nana Mouskouri has been married twice: first at age 25, to Yorgos Petsilas, a guitarist in her backing band and the first man she had kissed.
14.
Nana Mouskouri performed Luxembourg's entry in the Eurovision Song Contest 1963, "A force de prier".
15.
Nana Mouskouri was so unhappy with the request that she wanted to quit the show after only two days.
16.
On September 15,1965, Nana Mouskouri appeared for the first time on American television with Harry Belafonte on the Danny Kaye Show.
17.
Nana Mouskouri made her first appearance at Paris' legendary Olympia concert theatre the same year, singing French pop, Greek folk, and Hadjidakis numbers.
18.
In 1969, Nana Mouskouri released a full-length British LP, Over and over, which reached number 10 and spent 102 weeks in the UK album charts.
19.
Nana Mouskouri hosted her own shows for French and West German broadcasters during this period.
20.
In 1979, Nana Mouskouri released another English-language album named Roses and Sunshine.
21.
Nana Mouskouri scored a worldwide hit in 1981 with "Je chante avec toi Liberte", which was translated into several languages after its success in France.
22.
In 1984, Nana Mouskouri returned to Greece and performed to a large audience at the Odeon of Herodes Atticus; her first performance in her homeland since 1962.
23.
That same year, Nana Mouskouri made a play for the Spanish-language market with the hit single Con Toda el Alma.
24.
Mouskouri's 1991 English album, Only Love: The Best of Nana Mouskouri, became her best-selling release in the United States.
25.
Nana Mouskouri spent much of the 1990s touring the globe.
26.
Nana Mouskouri recorded several more albums over 1996 and 1997, including the Spanish Nana Latina, the English-language Return to Love, and the French pop classics, Hommages.
27.
On 30 May 2013, Nana Mouskouri was awarded an honorary degree by McGill University, Canada.
28.
Nana Mouskouri was appointed a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in October 1993.
29.
Nana Mouskouri took over from the previous ambassador, the recently deceased actress Audrey Hepburn.
30.
Nana Mouskouri went on to give a series of fund-raising concerts in Sweden and Belgium.
31.
Nana Mouskouri was a Member of the European Parliament for Greece through the centre-right New Democracy party from 1994 until 1999, when she resigned from her position as an MEP.
32.
On July 23 and 24,2008, Nana Mouskouri gave her two final 'Farewell Concert' performances at the ancient Herodes Atticus Theatre, in Athens, Greece, before a packed stadium, including Greece's Prime Minister and Athens mayor, plus the mayors of Berlin, Paris and Luxembourg, along with fans from around the world and thousands of her Athenian admirers.
33.
In 2010, in response to the financial crisis in Greece, Nana Mouskouri announced that she would forgo her pension to contribute to the country's recovery.
34.
In late 2011, Nana Mouskouri released two newly recorded CDs, the first featuring songs of the Greek Islands, recorded with other Greek singers, and the second featuring duets with French contemporaries.
35.
In late November 2011 Nana Mouskouri sang again at a single concert, with guests, in Berlin, commemorating the 50th anniversary of her hit single "The White Rose of Athens".
36.
Nana Mouskouri then did a concert tour in Germany in 2012.
37.
Nana Mouskouri introduced a song with a long translation into English of all the events supposedly mentioned in the song.
38.
Nana Mouskouri was parodied in the first episode of the 1970s New Zealand political satire A Week Of It.
39.
Nana Mouskouri had two other silver certified albums, Alone and At Her Very Best.
40.
In Germany, Nana Mouskouri has six albums that received certifications from BVMI.
41.
In 1996, Platinum Europe Awards handed Nana Mouskouri a special award saying "Europe is a great musical culture".
42.
Nana Mouskouri received a Golden Disc Award for "Weisse Rosen Aus Athen" and became the first Philip artist to reach one million sales.