The Aussie woman who fell in love with Tsitsanis, Theodorakis and spread rembetika to the world

Gail Holst-Warhaft, director of the Mediterranean Studies initiative (2004 onwards) and Faculty Associate of the Cornell Center for a Sustainable Future at Cornell University, was born in Australia, lives in the United States but has a heart that beats to the tune of rembetika – a Greek music genre that was once considered the music of tekes and hashish. So great is her love affair with the tunes of Vassilis Tsitsanis and Mikis Theodorakis that she has written extensively about their music and she continues to influence students from around the world with her focus on Greek music.

In Greece recently, on yet another of her numerous trips to the country, she shared what it is that draws her to Greece in an interview with daily newspaper Ethnos. “What always drew me to Greece is the atmosphere and the behavior of the people. They are such warm people. Then there’s the music. I would get excited when I heard Greek music and saw Greeks dancing. I always had a soft spot for zeimbekiko. In my country, when men drink they get aggressive. Greek men drink and dance zeimbekiko. How I like that!” she said.

The starting point of her love affair with rebetiko music was a song by Sotiria Bellou that carried her away. Mesmerised by the sounds, she began research into the roots of rebetiko music and wrote the book “Road to Rembetika: music of a Greek sub-culture, songs of love, sorrow and hashish.”

Her research got her in touch with numerous figures from the Greek music scene, such as Bellou and Tsitsanis, and of course Mikis Theodorakis. She met him at a young age during the dictatorship and this deeply affected her. In fact she met him in Sydney, at the Kingsford Smith Airport, where she was a participant in an organization against the dictatorship. She acted as the group’s translater and was deeply humbled by this role, however the great composer used humor to put her at ease proving that he is a great a person as he is a composer.

Now, she’s moved on from rembetika to nisiotika (Greek island music) and is writing new book on this music genre.