Lead composer Mimi Blessas “passed away” a week before turning 100 and opened the show at the theater to celebrate her birthday.
Mimis Plessas composed more than 3,000 songs, many of which are still heard today for films from ancient Greek cinema.
Throughout his life he was discreet and devoted to his music until his last moment.
He previously said in an interview with “Kathimerini”: “If I stop producing, I’ll die. All I want is to be useful. I’ve done this all my life and it’s worked well for me. They wonder how I manage. Because I work all the time, I’m not leaving.”
Finally, Mimis Plessas prepared a big concert to celebrate her 100 years at the Palace Theater until her last moment.
The composer has tackled all genres of music in his long journey and is self-taught.
“While I won awards in Europe and was a subject in Asia, in my country they wouldn’t let me be in a conservatory because I didn’t have a degree … I was self-taught”
“Three years ago I won three awards at the biggest jazz festival in Rotterdam – 19 of Europe’s best musicians took part. I was awarded for composition, composition and performance. People there didn’t know my age – after all, classical musicians and jazz are age-forgiving. If you play “new” enough
“I’ve worked with the biggest orchestras in the world, and it’s an episode I don’t dare touch, because when I went to conduct these orchestras nobody asked me which conservatory I graduated from. They could have asked me if I wanted a baguette, to which I said, “No thanks, I lead with my hands. ” I would have replied. We played and collected the prizes one by one.
“When I was invited to my country to teach at a conservatory, I said it was a great honor and I would do it with great pleasure. So they asked me to bring my documents for the recruitment to take place. I mean what papers, I was self-taught and the answer was simple: “Well, it is. Not possible”. I am currently teaching in Moscow… anyway…” he said in an interview to ‘Open Pages’.
As a chemist, Mimis Plessas remarked about art: “Two parallel lines meet at infinity. Art and science are like this. Both seek beauty, and what do they seek to do? They do it differently. If I must compose, I love, I daydream, I daydream, I suffer. , love. However different science and art may be, they seek beauty.”
“If you want to write a song, write it. But don’t wait for the moment you write it to get the reward. You have to be patient to pass the time with a scythe, which from time to time destroys the wrong vaccines.”
His collaboration with Tolis Voskopoulos
In 2020, in an interview on the show “It’s Not Better”, Mimi Plessas mentioned her collaboration with Dolis Voskopoulos:
“Initially, Dollis Voskopoulos asked me to write songs for him, but I didn’t want to. Why would I? Dollis was a huge brand at the time, so he did what he wanted on staff, on screen… So, actually, he came home and said he could help him. I wrote what he thought. The outcome of these rejections and acceptances is our stunning collaboration with Dollis.”
The story behind the song “Life Ends Here” for the film “Zero Visibility” with Nikos Korgolos
Finos asked Mimi Plessas to write a song for the movie “Oradotis Midan” for the scene where Nikos Korgolos burns his belongings – one of the most characteristic moments of the movie.
About this the composer would say in an interview to the campaign: “I tell Lefteris Papadopoulos, he replies, “I don’t write to order, Mitso.” At the same time, I tell him how Korgolos should burn his stuff, and an hour later he says, “Write.” He takes me. I’ve even heard it at weddings, “Life ends here,” and I’ve heard newlyweds sing out loud, and they don’t know where to hide.”
Married to Lucilla Carrer and her daughter Eliana
Mimi Blessas was married twice. He had a son, Antonis Plesa, from his first marriage.
With his second wife, Lucilla Carr, they stayed together for 30 years and had their 26-year-old daughter Eliana. In fact, the composer’s daughter held her first solo art exhibition at the age of 17, with her parents by her side and her father declaring his pride in his daughter’s work.
“My daughter is the best I can imagine. I admire her a lot,” he said in an interview.
Mimi Plessas, in her statements to television cameras, also mentioned the large age difference between her and her daughter Eliana: “I will not equate the pros and cons of my current maturity as a father, because the mental resources I can offer her are incomparably greater. Many times I have faced some of the difficulties of raising her. She managed to run as much as she wanted at our games, watch her run more than me when we swam together, and beg her to take some time to show me on her birthday. The fluency she characterizes her generation is the solution to my problem with computers.”