Roza Eskenazi

Roza Eskenazi (c. 1890 – 2 December 1980, _el. Ρόζα Εσκενάζυ) was a famous Greek singer of traditional Greek music from Asia Minor and later Rebetiko. Her recording career extended from the late 1920s into the 1970s.

Born Sarah Skenazi in Constantinople (now Istanbul), Roza Eskenazi was of Sephardi Jewish origin. When she was about 7 years old, her family moved to Thessaloniki, where her parents earned a living doing a variety of menial jobs. In her teens Rosa began performing with two Armenian cabaret dancers named Seramous and Zabel, who reportedly liked her because she could speak their language and had talent as a singer. [cite book|last=Eskenazē|first=Roza|year=1982|title=Auta pou thymamai|others=introduction by Kōstas Chatzēdoulē|publisher=Kaktos |location=Athens|language=Greek|pages=]

Eskenazi moved to Piraeus in 1910. She continued to perform as a dancer but also sang songs in Greek, Turkish, and Armenian for cabaret patrons. In 1929, she was discovered by Panagiotis Tountas, a well-known composer and record producer with whom she made her first recordings. She soon became famous, and by the mid 1930s, she had recorded more than 500 folk music, rebetiko songs and songs from Smyrna. From its beginning, her lengthy career was associated with rebetiko music. Although she sang all types of music ranging from folk to lighter types of songs, the beginning of her career signifies the rebetiko music's breakthrough, forever associating her voice with the genre.

Rosa Eskenazi is considered a model for other singers because of her personal style, technique and passion. Unfortunately, the censorship of one of her songs "Πρέζα όταν Πιείς" (the title meaning "a quid when drinking") by Ioannis Metaxas lead to a marginalization of other midwar rebetiko singers but opened the way to the school of Vassilis Tsitsanis. Before World War II, Rosa Eskenazi travelled as a singer in the Balkan region, Turkey and the Middle East. After the war, she toured the United States and Turkey.

In the 1970s Rosa Eskenazi became famous once again as a result of the rebetiko's "rediscovery". She died in Athens on 2 December 1980, aged 90.

In 1982, a short memoir, assembled from interviews with Eskenazi late in her life, was published under the title "Αυτά πού Θυμάμαι" ("The Things I Remember"). The book includes a large number of photographs of the artist at the height of her career.

References