Georgia Dagaki

Georgia Dagaki was born and grew up in Athens; her family comes from Rethymno in Crete. Her parents were not musicians, but they supported her early pull towards music. At twelve she started lessons on the Cretan lyra with Manos Pyrovolakis, whom she later described as an excellent and very strict teacher. She also studied piano, singing, music theory and harmony, as well as photography. In a 2018 interview she said she was still studying at Athens conservatories, alongside the tradition she grew up with.

Her first album, Στην άκρη αυτού του κόσμου (At the Edge of This World), came out in 2006 on the Cretan label Aerakis. According to her official biography, in summer 2009 she toured 25 cities abroad with Eric Burdon and the Animals, adding lyra to rock songs. That year the German world-music label Network Medien released her album Ασκαρδαμυκτί (Without Blinking), also sold as Secret Love. Φόβος (Fear) followed in 2014 on Monopol Records in Berlin. She also appeared on stage in Αναφορά στον Γκρέκο (Report to Greco), Takis Chrysikakos's theatre piece based on Nikos Kazantzakis. Singles for Minos EMI and Panik Oxygen led to the album Πάθος (Passion) in 2021.

Dagaki sings and plays at the same time. The Cretan lyra is a small pear-shaped instrument with three strings, held upright on the knee and played with a bow. On her 2006 debut she is credited with lyra, piano and vocals. That album stays close to Cretan music: it includes a σούστα (soústa), a lively Cretan dance, and closes with a ριζίτικο (rizítiko), a song from the mountain villages of western Crete, arranged after Nikos Xylouris's well-known version.

She later explained her direction simply: inside her are two worlds, the tradition she grew up with and the classical and contemporary training she received in Athens, and her own identity comes from bringing them together. Ασκαρδαμυκτί already moved between them, with Ερωτόκριτος (Erotokritos), named after the Cretan Renaissance poem, next to new songs such as Το καράβι της φυγής (The Ship of Escape). In 2016 she performed in Αναφορά στον Γκρέκο at the Kolonos Theatre in Athens, where her lyra and voice answered the characters of Kazantzakis. Her 2019 single Η Τίγρη (The Tiger) reworked a song by Dimitris Apostolakis (Chainis), first sung by Psarantonis, with a harder rock sound. Πάθος collects thirteen tracks, including Τα ποτάμια (The Rivers) and Σύννεφο θα γίνω (I Will Become a Cloud), first heard in the short film Τα Γεμιστά.

In Crete the lyra has long been played mostly by men, and an interviewer in 2018 called a woman with a lyra a rare sight; Dagaki answered that for her music has no high or low, only worthy, decent and good artists. Greek press has described her as an unconventional lyra player, and her work carries the instrument from village dances into rock and theatre. For a learner, the lyra is a clear way into simple description. Look at this page's photo of a Cretan lyra and name three things: η λύρα, οι χορδές, το δοξάρι. Then listen to the opening of Σούστα from her 2006 album and say aloud what you hear: Ο ήχος είναι μακρύς (The sound is long) or Ο ήχος είναι σύντομος (The sound is short).

• Asked in 2018 to name a milestone in her musical journey, she chose her first Cretan lyra lesson.
• Her first teacher, Manos Pyrovolakis, also played piano and mixed her 2006 debut album.
• The album title Ασκαρδαμυκτί is a Greek adverb meaning “without blinking”.
• Her advice to young musicians fits in four words: Επιμονή, υπομονή, αγάπη, αλήθεια (persistence, patience, love, truth).