Entechna laika

Entechna laika, the Greek "art-popular" song (entechno laiko), is the tradition created from the late 1950s by *Manos Hadjidakis* and *Mikis Theodorakis*, who fused the bouzouki world of laiko and rebetiko with Western orchestral writing, Greek folk melody and settings of the country's major poets. Orchestras frame singers such as *Grigoris Bithikotsis* and *Maria Farantouri* in through-composed songs and cycles — *Epitaphios*, *To Axion Esti* — that carried poetry by *Yiannis Ritsos*, *Giorgos Seferis* and *Odysseas Elytis* to mass audiences. The repertoire became modern Greece's shared national songbook, spanning concert hall, cinema and taverna.