In London I met and worked with two distinguished self-exiled Greek performers. The singer Maria Farantouri and the world-renowned tragedienne Aspasia Papathanassiou. With Maria Farantouri we gave concerts in London and toured Italy in support of the demand for releasing Theodorakis and the other political prisoners of the junta. With Aspasia Papathanassiou we collaborated in a couple of projects. One was ‘Epitafios’, the Yannis Ritsos poetic elegy, which she recited to an original music score I composed and was released on an LP recording. There was also ‘Sivilla’, the poetic tragedy by Angelos Sikelianos, which she performed to my music at London’s Cambridge Theatre. During that period, I was also composing songs, setting to music various poems and to my own lyrics. They were mostly songs of resistance to the political situation in Greece.

In 1970 the composer Mikis Theodorakis was released by the junta and moved to Paris. He invited me there and asked me to orchestrate his recently composed “March of the Spirit’ He wanted it to be for a large orchestra, chorus and three vocal soloists. This was performed at the Royal Albert Hall by the London Symphony Orchestra, the Gwallia Choir and soloists at a concert which included other works of his. Conducting was shared between Theodorakis and me. The vocal soloists at the concert were Maria Farantouri, Antonis Kaloyannis and John Theocharis. The latter, who have studied at RADA, was at the time employed by the Greek Section of the BBC World Service and preparing a radio production of “The Girl from Samos,” a classical comedy by Menander, its lost manuscripts recently re discovered. He commissioned me to compose the music. The production attracted a lot of attention, and the music was particularly noted by many, including the BBC Drama Department which decided then to do, in translation, its own production of the play directed by Raymond Raikes. I was commissioned to compose the music for the new production and this marked the beginning of my long and fruitful association with the BBC Drama Department as a composer in dozens of its productions Around that time I was also often engaged by the Greek Section of the BBC-World Service as a programme assistant, at first mainly contributing to its cultural output. At a later stage I became Head of the Greek Section, for three years.

In April 1974, a few months after the students uprising in Athens and even fewer to the fall of the junta, Maria Farantouri sung to a packed audience at London’s Round House, Theodorakis’s “Canto General” and my Song Cycle “Exile and November 1973”.

In the Summer of 1974 democracy was re-established in Greece. I decided to stay on in London. Music commissions from the BBC Drama Department have become quite frequent. All the commissions were of music interest to me but some, i.e., “AG”, had indeed a direct impact in the shaping of my music world and composing ideas. Through and because of these BBC Drama music commissions I also got to know some excellent musicians as well as instrumental and vocal ensembles with whom I regularly worked on my music, in recording studios but also in concerts.

In Greece, my music presence as a composer was at first mainly established in the theatre field. I was often commissioned to compose music for Ancient Greek tragedies and comedies, produced by prestigious theatre organisations such as the National Theatre of N. Greece, the Experimental Popular Theatre, the Cyprus National Theatre and above all, by “DESMI” the theatre group headed by Aspasia Papathanassiou. My collaboration with the latter flourished for many years and resorted in some highly acclaimed productions. Another outstanding collaboration is the one I developed with THEPAK, the Theatre Workshop of Cyprus University and its permanent director, the poet/ Professor Michalis Pieris. It began in 2005 with “Erotokritos”, the renaissance Cretan drama, which we then conceived and staged as a kind of ‘popular opera’.

To a great extent it was the music and the songs I composed for ‘Erotokritos’ that reenforced my interest in exploring the art of Music and Verse as an integral part of the relationship between Music and Text.