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Greek composer, musician, politician, and cultural icon whose vast body of work blended symphonic traditions with Greek folk music, and whose life was deeply intertwined with the political struggles of 20th-century Greece.Mikis Theodorakis was a prolific composer whose career spanned over seven decades. He composed symphonies, oratorios, chamber music, and numerous film scores (including 'Zorba the Greek'). A prominent leftist, he was imprisoned and exiled multiple times for his resistance activities against fascist occupation and later the Greek military junta (1967-1974). His music, particularly the powerful 'Mauthausen Trilogy' and the 'Ballad of Mauthausen', became anthems of resistance. After the fall of the junta, he served in parliament and remained a significant political and cultural figure in Greece and internationally until his death.

• Theodorakis joined the Greek Resistance against the Axis occupation during WWII as a teenager. He was captured and brutally tortured by Nazi forces.
• During the Greek Civil War (1946-1949), Theodorakis, a communist sympathizer, was arrested by the right-wing government, sent to internal exile on the island of Icaria, and later transferred to the infamous prison camp on Makronisos, where he was again tortured and suffered broken limbs and severe tuberculosis.
• Under the Greek military junta (1967-1974), Theodorakis's music was banned, and he was imprisoned. An international campaign led by figures like Leonard Bernstein, Arthur Miller, and Dmitri Shostakovich secured his release in 1970, but he was immediately forced into exile in Paris. He continued his resistance efforts from abroad until the junta's collapse.
• He survived several serious health crises, including severe tuberculosis in his youth and multiple heart attacks later in life. He died of heart failure in Athens at the age of 96.