Manos Hadjidakis was born in Xanthi, on October 23, 1925. At the age of four he began piano lessons and later he studied theory and harmony. From 1945 on, when he began his collaboration with the Greek National Theatre and the Art Theatre, he composed music for ancient Greek drama, as well as incidental music for the contemporary repertory. In 1948, he wrote what he considered as his favorite composition, For a Small White Seashell. His famous lecture on the "rebetiko" (1949) roused a storm of reaction from the conservative Greek society. And yet, it radically changed the nature and course of Greek song writing. The year 1951 saw the founding of the Greek Chorodrama of Rallou Manou –with Hadjidakis as co-founder and artistic manager. He also composed music for a great number of films. In 1960 he was awarded an Oscar for his song for the film Never on Sunday. His long and fruitful collaboration with Maurice Béjart began in 1965. During the period 1966-72 he lived in New York, where he wrote some of his most important works and recorded Gioconda’s Smile. He founded and directed the Athens Experimental Orchestra, the Music Festivals at Anoyia, the Musical August Festival at Herakleion. He also founded and edited the cultural magazine Tetarto, the record company Sirius, the Symphony Orchestra of Colours, and was head of the Third Programme of Greek National Radio, which he revolutionized. On the afternoon of June 15, 1994, Manos Hadjidakis "began his journey to the stars".