Born Iōánna Moúschouri on the 13th October 1934 in Chania, Crete, Greece, Nana Mouskouri is a singer, who has become one of the most successful Greek artists, selling as many as 300 million album copies, releasing over 200 albums and has recorded in several languages, including English, Greece, German, Dutch, Portuguese, Hebrew, Mandarin Chinese, and Spanish, among others.
Have you ever wondered how rich Nana Mouskouri is, as of mid- 2017? According to authoritative sources, it has been estimated that Mouskouri’s net worth is as high as $280 million, an amount earned through her long and prolific career, which has been active since the late ‘50s.
Nana Mouskouri Net Worth $280 Million
She is the daughter of Constantine, a film projectionist, and Alice, who worked as an usherette in the same cinema with Constantine. She has an older sister, and once Nana turned three years old, the whole family moved to Athens. From the age of six, she started expressing her musical talents but it wasn’t until she was 12 years old that she started taking singing lessons. Her sister Jenny was already training to become a singer, and struck by poverty, the Mouskouri family couldn’t afford to pay lessons for both of their girls.
However, in 1950 Nana was accepted at the Athens Conservatoire, where she studied opera singing and after eight years there, she launched her professional career, recording her first song – “Fascination” – in 1957, and the next year started performing in night clubs as a jazz singer. In 1960 she released her debut studio album “Epitaphios”, and since then has released more than 200 albums in several languages, most notable Greek and English, but also German, French, and Portuguese. She then moved to Paris, and recorded several albums, which only helped her gain popularity and increase her wealth, after which at the invitation of Quincy Jones, in 1962 crossed to the US to record a jazz album, which came out the same year, entitled “The Girl from Greece Sings”.
Nana next participated in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1963, representing Luxembourg with the song “À force de prier”, which became a huge commercial hit, and then in 1965 had another US hit “My Colouring Book”; after Harry Belafonte heard the album, he took Nana with him on tour.
After that, she returned to Europe and achieved national success in France with the album “Le Jour où la colombe” in 1967, while in 1969 she released “The White Rose of Athens”, which became her first recording to garner more than one million copies sold, which only increased her wealth. She was slowly becoming more and more popular throughout the world, and from 1968 until 1976 she was hosting her own show “Presenting Nana Mouskouri” on BBC TV. In 1981 she had her most successful hit “Je Chante avec toi Liberté”, which she also sang in English, German, and Portuguese. She released a number of albums throughout the ‘80s, and in 1987 toured across Asia, visiting such countries as South Korea, Hong Kong, Thailand, Singapore, Taiwan and Malaysia.
Nothing changed for Nana in the ‘90s, as she was recording new albums, including “Only Love: The Best of Nana Mouskouri” (1990), which is her best-selling album in the USA, then “Hollywood” in 1993, and “Nana Latina” (1996), which featured collaboration with Latin stars Mercedes Sosa and Julio Iglesias. She retired in 2008, but not before releasing several more albums and touring across the Europe again, as well as across the globe as her farewell tour. Luckily for all of her fans, Nana returned to the music industry in 2011, and since then has again been active both in the studio and on stage.
Regarding her personal life, Nana has two children with her ex-husband Yorgos Petsilas, with whom she was married from 1961 until 1975. She has been married André Chapelle since 2003; the two reside in Switzerland.
Nana has also been known for his philanthropic activities; aside from holding numerous charity concerts, she has also been the UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador since 1993.
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