Dimitris Papadimitriou

Dimitris Papadimitriou (Greek: Δημήτρης Παπαδημητρίου, Jeddah, 6 July 1959) is a Greek composer. Dimitris Papadimitriou was born on 6 July 1959 in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. His parents are Stelios Papadimitriou, who was the right-hand man of Aristotle Onassis, and Alexandra Papadimitriou. His brother is Antonis Papadimitriou, president of the Onassis Foundation. Dimitris Papadimitriou grew up in Alexandria, Egypt until he was seven years old. Classical music was played in his home all day long. In 1976, after entering the Athens Law School, he participated as a composer in performances of the theater department of the University of Athens, such as Oedipus Tyrannus, Fausta, Us and Time, and Vengera. Manos Hadjidakis heard his music and encouraged him to devote himself to this art. Dimitris Papadimitriou has written symphonic works, pieces for solo instruments and combinations of instruments, music for theater and for Greek cinema (Electric Angel, Revenge, Archangel of Passion, The Tree We Wounded, Victory of Samothrace, Lovers in the Time Machine, Life of One and a Half Thousand, The Light That Dies, etc.), for Greek television and for television series in Sweden, France, Germany and elsewhere. The general public discovered him because of television. Known since the early 1980s and up to the present day for his exquisite compositions, several of which have been used in well-known television hits (such as Anastasia by Giorgos Kordellas, written by Mirela Papaikonomou, Mi Fovasai Ti Fotia, Logo Timites, I zoia pou den ezisa, Leni and the Witches of Smyrnis), Dimitris Papadimitriou has also collaborated with Eleftheria Arvanitaki on a cycle of songs with the general title Tragoudia Gia Tous Minines, in which he set well-known Greek poets to music. In 2003 he became director of the Third Program and in September 2010 general director of Hellenic Radio. Busy and versatile, after his long presence in the administration of ERT radio, he founded the Greek Project, a non-profit organization for the promotion of Greek and other music. In 2006, he gave a concert in the General Assembly Hall of the United Nations on the occasion of the organization's 60th anniversary.