Burning sun. We can feel the summer on our bodies. Those are our first associations when we hear about her. And right after that, the words come…Alkistis Protopsalti: talent, instinct, choice, adrenalin, emotional voice, eternal youth. Alkistis Protopsalti celebrates 30 years in the music industry.

Dimos Moutzis is the one who discovered her talent, when she was only 17 years old. Her performance in front of five thousand people in Pale de Spor in Thessaloniki in 1974, won the hearts of the audience. This ensured her a participation in the mixed album “Tetralogia” based on lyrics by Seferis, Kavafis, Ritzos and Kariotakis. Dimos Moutzis also gives her, her artistic nickname, with which she is famous – Protopsalti. Two years after “Tetralogia,” Alkistis records her first solo album. Sonce the beginning of her career, she is following her instinct and cooperates with one of the best composers in the Greek modern music scene – Ilias Andriopoulos and Yanis Spasos, who is a famous composer of the so called “New wave” songs.

Few years after her entrance in the music industry, Alkistis meets her high school friend Stamatis Kraounakis, who had become a good composer and in the company of Lina Nicolacopoulou (song writer), Andreas Voutzinas, and scenographer  Manolis Pandelakis, they offer the audience a new type of entertainment. All of them are endowed with enough fantasy and transform all lyrics into a theatrical play and the performer becomes the main character in the fairytale.

Alkistis had cooperated with all the big stars of the Greek music scene, among which are Dionisis Savopoulos and Mikis Theodorakis. With her voice and her undoubted talent, she has enchanted people in Sweden, Denmark, Portugal, Great Britain, China, Israel, Cyprus, Russia and in the USA. Until now, Alkistis has 26 solo albums behind her back and has participated in another 20 with other artists.

Regarding her song, which gives the name of her best-of-best album “We are still alive…,” Alkistis says that “During the summer of 1986 I had a tour around Greece with Dimitra Galanis. I had been admiring her ever since my school years but not only because of her voice but also because of her temperament. During this tour we became close enough, so we can make two beautiful songs: “We are still alive…” and “Right,” from where the name of the CD came, which we made later on.”

When Alkistis falls in love with the “Gypsy weather,” she leaves for Sarajevo right away, together with Lina Nicolacopoulou. There, they meet Bregovich and the Balkan rhythms intertwine with the Greek song and as a result, the song “I admitted” came along. Protopsalti likes discovering new paths and living on the edge. In the 1999 play “Like a waking up volcano,” which was played in the Community Pieria Theatre, choreographer Dimitris Papayoanou endues a different dimension to the beauty of her desires. There are many moments, which seem to be taken out of a beautiful dream – in Cuba, in the Irodio theatre, during the closing ceremony of the Olympic Games, in the Forbidden City in Beijing…the rest is history.

Alkistis Protopsalti’s best-of-best album “We are still alive…” was made for the celebration of her 30 years on stage. The album is made out of three CDs and it distributed by UNIVERSAL MUSIC. The collection edition has 4 CDs with 80 songs, 1 DVD, 28 videos, a book with photos, programs, critiques, and notes of Alkistis Protopsalti. This summer, Protopsalti was, once more number one in the Greek clubs with her song “Pame Hawaii” (Let’s go to Hawaii). You can see why here.