ATHENS – Born in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), the internationally renowned Marios Frangoulis, a child of the Greek diaspora community, returns to New York to captivate the audience with his voice. One of the best tenor voices in music today, Frangoulis is a worthy ambassador of Greek culture.

Frangoulis, throughout his venerable career has collaborated with a variety of Greek and foreign colleagues and with continuous tours, this artist continues his artistic pursuits and always gives the Greek community his best, always with pride because he is one of us, a Greek who performs many types of music and is often in Greece. He has also stated in one of many interviews that “he did not want to be a foreign product in Greece.” And he has proved it for nearly three decades, although his career began successfully with a musical in London, when he was quite young, he made Greece his home base. Since then he has been equally successful with classical crossover, musicals, the opera, and ancient tragedy. His studies and especially his talent have allowed him to succeed in all his endeavors. And the reviews of his work are always good.

After appearing in Greece in the summer, finishing his tour with a wonderful evening at the Odeon of Herodes Atticus in late September along with one of the best soprano in the world, Romanian Angela Gheorghiu, Frangoulis will perform in New York on November 6th and from there to performances in Montreal and Los Angeles.

He would like to perform in more cities but has a planned tour in Europe with Sarah Brightman, he said in an interview with The National Herald a little over 24 hours before coming to New York.

Asked if his repertoire would be the same as the one performed in the summer in Greece, he told TNH no. His appearances in the United States are entitled “An Intimate Evening with Mario Frangoulis.”

He explained to TNH, “It’s a concert with which the audience will get to know me a little more personally, through various stories, my studies, and the first time I stepped on stage. Of course, my life, my first steps, and first worries are marked by many songs. From my first role in West End theater in London with Les Miserables, the roles that I played, how musical theater and my classical training served me throughout my career. In fact, the show includes various songs from all over the world where I have performed and with many personal songs from my discography, both Greek and foreign.”

If Frangoulis art was paintings, it could be called a retrospective of the last 25 years, TNH asked, and the artist laughed that it is almost thirty years.

When asked if the audience in the United States is mostly Greek or mostly American, Frangoulis noted that “it is mostly American, but always with the support of the Greek people who supported me in every step and project. Certainly, in some concerts that are done for charitable purposes, the Greek community prevails.”

Video: Marios Frangoulis Press Conference at the Greek Consulate in NYC, Nov. 1, 2017

Frangoulis is well-known to American audiences as one of the first tenors in the classical crossover genre in 2002, at about the same time as Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli. “Then we became a small band that opened the way to this kind of classical crossover,” Frangoulis told TNH. And indeed these songs became popular and they entered the Billboard charts. The classical songs were more closely embraced by the world through the new genre of classical crossover which was popularized by the voices of Frangoulis, Bocelli, Brightman, and others.

Frangoulis’ concerts in North America will include five musicians and songs from great lyricists and composers from Greece and abroad, for example Nikos Gatsos and Manos Hadjidakis, Lina Nikolakopoulou and Eleni Karaindou, and many others as well “who have trusted me their songs,” Frangoulis noted.

An Intimate Evening with Marios Frangoulis concert will be held on November 6 at Rose Theater, Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Frederick P. Rose Hall. More information is available online at: www.mariofrangoulis.com.