The voice of Demetrio Stratos, forty years after his death, continues to arouse enthusiasm and emotion.
A collaborator of John Cage, founder of Area, and vocalist for Ribelli, his body of work displays a unique heterogeneity, extending from the territories of pop music to those of rock, jazz, contemporary music, and the most radical avant-garde, always at unsurpassed levels.
In terms of its scope and intensity, the character of his work takes on the elusiveness of myth, a myth that he truly was for those years, when his voice represented to the highest degree the will for change, for the creation of the new and the destruction of dogma.
Demetrio Stratos was born in Egypt to Greek parents and came to Italy in the 60s to attend university. He began singing—by chance, some might say—and became the lead singer for Ribelli, a leading group of Italian beat music: a Greek singer!
In the 70s, he co-founded Area, one of the most provocative and innovative experimental pop groups. Area brought their musical research directly to the streets and demonstrations, as well as on record and in concerts.
Their influences range from rock to jazz to contemporary music, from world music to electronica. A quantum leap for an accidental soul and rhythm and blues singer.
Starting from his experimental work with Area, parallel to it, and after the birth of his daughter Anastassia, Stratos began to study the voice as a pure musical and sound instrument, making records for voice alone and working with artists of the caliber of John Cage.
Recordings and measurements carried out at the Phonology Centers demonstrate that, in addition to having a very wide range of emission, it has the ability to emit two and even three sounds of different frequencies simultaneously.
His research remains fruitful for those who study the voice as a musical instrument, his experiments unsurpassed.
Stratos's research marked a point of no return in the exploration of the human voice as a musical instrument, in the abandonment of verbal language as the sole and privileged form of musical expression linked to vocality.
In March 79, Demetrio was admitted first to Milan, then to Memorial Hospital in New York for a serious form of aplastic anemia.
Demetrio Stratos died in New York on June 13, 1979, just on the eve of a concert organized to raise funds for his expensive treatments.
The concert at the Arena Civica became a colossal tribute to the artist and the man. Around a hundred musicians took turns on stage before an audience of over 60.000. A massive audience for an artist who had never before been a "mass" figure.
