MUSICOLOGY

George Leotsakos

Born in Athens, on 9 August 1935. He is musicologist, historian of Greek music and music critic (1959-1991) to some of the most prestigious Athenian daily newspapers and periodicals. He studied with composers Kostas Kydoniatis and Yannis Andreou Papaïoannou, graduating from the Hellenic Conservatory in 1964. A contributor since the early 1970s to the Grove dictionaries (articles on both Greece and Albania), to Pangosmio Viografiko Lexiko [Universal Biographical Dictionary; published by Ekdotiki Athinon in 1983-1988], and to other encyclopedias. He remains an independent researcher out of personal choice. As he says, he has never compiled the bibliographical list of his scientific treatises and publications, because he was always busy working on its next item. He was the first Western musicologist to penetrate in 1981 into Albania, isolated at the time, and report on its peculiar musical culture – his lengthy article on Albanian Music was published in the first issue of Musicology in 1985. His most recent work, a ca 700-page monograph on Spyros Samaras, published by the Ionian University is in print. He is a member of the Advisory Board of Musicology.