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Dimitrios Semsis or "Dimitrios Salonikios" (1883-1950), was born in Strumica.
Biography
His father and his grand father were also violinists. At the end of 19th century, he joined the band of a circus, which was traveling all over the Balkans. Later, he joined other traveling bands and played in several places such as, Turkey, Syria, Egypt, Sudan and elsewhere. After the end of the World War I, as Strumica remained in the kingdom of Serbia, Dimitrios Semsis' family moved to Thessaloniki (1919). In 1923 he married Dimitra Kanoula and had 4 children. At the beginning of 1927 he moved to Athens. By that time he took the nickname "Salonikios", propably because some agents from recording companies thought that his origin was from Thessaloniki. He is the first instrument player that his name is written on the disc labels. At the end of 1920s, Dimitrios Semsis was Recording Director of HMV and Columbia. He participated in hundreds of recordings of folk, rebetic and smyrnaic songs between 1924 and 1931. He presented in 1928, his first songs and became the Director of Arts of His Masrer's Voice, in 1931 until his death. He composed over 100 songs.
In the 1930s, Dimitrios was recording with Roza Eskenazi, with great successes. He often, was accompaning her to the taverns with Tompoulis, Lampros Savvaidis and Lampros Leonaridis. His compositions were being recorded by the greatest artists of that time, such as, Rita Ampatzi, Stelios Perpiniadis and Stratos Pagioumtzis. He composed rebetic, folk, smyrnaic and amane songs.
Dimitrios Semsis was, without doubt, the greatest violinist in the rebetic and smyrnaic style. He recorded hundreds of discs and plenty of them are re-released nowadays. In 1972, in an interview, Roza Eskenazi said that Dimitrios was playing "the best violin in the world"
After a short time of illness, he died by cancer in Athens, at 13 of January in 1950. He has living descendants in Greece.
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