Dimitri Terzakis, Greek-German composer and educator
Dimitri Terzakis (Greek: Δημήτρης Τερζάκης; born March 12, 1938 in Athens) is a Greek composer. His father was the author Angelos Terzakis.
From 1959–1964 Terzakis studied composition with Yannis Papaioannou at the Athens Hellenic Conservatory, followed by five years spent at the Hochschule für Musik in Cologne, Germany where he studied composition with Bernd Alois Zimmermann and electronic music with Herbert Eimert. Works by Terzakis have been performed at the International Society for Contemporary Music Festival in Basle (1970), the Darmstadt Artists' Colony summer courses (1970) and the Hamburg Das Neue Werk series (1972). He taught counterpoint and fugue (1974–94) and Byzantine music and composition (1989–94) at the Musikhochschule, Düsseldorf. In 1980 he began to organize summer courses in Western and south-eastern European music in Nafplion. In 1985–6 he was guest professor of composition at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler. From 1994 to his retirement he held the chair for composition at the Leipzig Felix Mendelssohn College of Music and Theatre.
He has been a German citizen since 1985 and is living and composing in Leipzig, Germany, and Nafplion, Greece.