Αλέκος Καραβίτης

Lyre virtuoso Alekos Karavitis (Greek: Αλέκος Καραβίτης, 1904–1975) was born in Aktounta, a small village in the region of Aghios Vasileios, prefecture of Rethymnon in Crete. He started learning to play the Cretan lyre at an early age. At the age of 24, he married Chryssoula Gartzolaki from the nearby village of Yanniou and moved to Athens. They had three children, two girls and a boy. Karavitis went on to spread his island's music throughout the world. He even composed his own melodies, which became widely known. Although he was self-employed, every year in Athens he staged the very successful "Festival of Lyra." He also coordinated international presentations of Greek folk music and dance, bringing together famous societies of the time led by Koula Pratsika and Dora Stratou and other Hellenic institutions with his own Cretan group and others from all over Greece. In 1936, the Cretan group and "Koula Pratsika folk music & dance society" performed at the Berlin Olympics and were awarded the prize of a cruise through North Sea fjords aboard the renowned liner "Oceania". Later, Karavitis and his Cretan team proceeded to Alexandria, Egypt where they were enthusiastically welcomed by the Greek community. In 1946, his group performed at the UNESCO/United Nations headquarters in Paris. The zenith of his career was reached in the early 1950s when Karavitis organized a venture with the Dora Stratou folk music & dance society to the United States, which included a tour around several states from Maine to Florida that climaxed at a performance in Carnegie Hall, New York. In London, Alekos Karavitis appeared on BBC television, introduced by his close friend and war hero, Major Patrick Leigh Fermor and eminent pianist Gina Bachauer. Karavitis made a large contribution to the "Kritiki Estia" (Cretan Center) and donated an apartment in central Athens to the University of Crete in Rethymnon. He died in 1975.