Stamatis Spanoudakis (Σταμάτης Σπανουδάκης) is a famous Greek classical and new age composer. He was born in Athens Greece at a very early age. Music became the most important part of his life. As a child, he first studied Classical music (guitar and theory) with professor Haralampos Ekmektsoglou. Then, as a teenager in the sixties and the seventies, he played bass guitar and keyboards in a number of bands in Athens, Paris and finally, London, where he lived for a number of years and recorded his first albums. After that, Classical music won him over again, so he decided to return to his studies of composition, at first in Wurzburg Germany with professor Bertold Hummel and then back in Athens with professor Konstantinos Kydoniatis. He was then attracted to his third love - Byzantine music, which led him to Greek songwriting and instrumental music. Since then he has been consciously trying to reconcile his three musical influences (Rock, Classical and Byzantine), in his music. He has written numerous hit songs (both the music and the lyrics) for most of the major contemporary Greek singers. He has also composed the music for many blockbuster films in Greece, Germany and Italy, music for theater and television and has so far recorded more than fifty albums. Since 1995, he has concentrated almost exclusively on instrumental music, based on Greek historical or religious themes. Music that has an unprecedented commercial appeal, with all his records turning gold and platinum, with minimum effort and very rare appearances in public. Stamatis lives in a quiet suburb with his wife Dori and their four dogs. He has his own studio where he records his music, being the composer, arranger, producer, performer and sound engineer of his work. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.