Efstratios Dimitriou (Greek: Ευστράτιος Δημητρίου; 22 April 1945 – 13 June 1979), known professionally as Demetrio Stratos, was a Greek-Italian vocalist, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and music researcher, best known as the co-founder, frontman and lead singer of the Italian progressive rock band Area – International POPular Group.
Born and raised in Alexandria, Egypt, of Greek parents, he studied piano and accordion at the "National Conservatoire". In 1957 he was sent to Nicosia, Cyprus, and, at the age of 17, moved to Milan, Italy, to attend the Politecnico di Milano University at the Architecture Faculty, where he formed his first musical group. In 1967, Demetrio Stratos joined the Italian beat band I Ribelli, and in 1972, founded Area.
Stratos recorded many records, and toured festivals in Italy, France, Portugal, Switzerland, Netherlands, Cuba, and the United States with Area, as well as a solo artist and in collaboration with other artists. He worked with Mogol, Lucio Battisti, Gianni Sassi, Gianni Emilio Simonetti, Juan Hidalgo, Walter Marchetti, John Cage, Tran Quang Hai, Merce Cunningham, Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, Grete Sultan, Paul Zukofsky, Nanni Balestrini, Claude Royet-Journoud, and Antonio Porta.
Stratos studied ethnomusicology, vocal extensions, Asian music chant, compared musicology, the problem of ethnic vocality, psychoanalysis, the relationship between spoken language and the psyche, the limits of the spoken language. He was able to reach 7,000 Hz, and to perform diplophony, triplophony, and also quadrophony. Daniel Charles has described him as the person who decimated monody by the demultiplication of the acoustic spectrum. His vocal abilities were explored and documented.
Stratos died in New York City Memorial Hospital on 13 June 1979 at the age of 34. His self-proclaimed mission was to free vocal expression from what he considered to be the slavery of language and classical lyrical melody. He considered the exploration of vocal potential as a tool of psychological and political liberation. His studies and recognition of the voice as musical instrument carried this ethos to the edge of human vocal ability. His work is considered by many critics and vocalists as important in the progression of experimental and novel vocal techniques.
Demetrio Stratos was born as Efstratios Demetriou in Alexandria, Egypt, on 22 April 1945 to Greek parents Janis Demetriou and Athanassia Archondoyorghi. He spent his first 13 years in Alexandria where he studied piano and accordion at the prestigious Conservatoire National d'Athènes ("National Conservatoire of Athens"), and studied English at the British Boys School. As he later said, the fact that he was born in Alexandria made him feel like a special and privileged "porter" in an international hotel, destined to live the experience of peoples' passages and to assist in the true "traffic" of culture in the Mediterranean area, so full of various ethnic groups and intense musical practices. His family was of Greek Orthodox religion, so during his infancy he listened to religious Byzantine songs, traditional Arabic music and then the early beginnings of rock and roll. All of those sounds strongly influenced him for the rest of his life. In 1957, because of the political events that upset Egypt, he was sent to the Catholic College of the Holy Land in Nicosia, Cyprus where, two years later, his family joined him.
In 1962, he and his family moved to Milan, Italy where he attended the Politecnico di Milano University at the Architecture Faculty. In 1963 he formed his first musical group and performed live at the "Casa dello studente" ("Student's House") Festival in Milan, then in some of the local pubs such as the Santa Tecla and the Intra's al Corso. Fortuitously, the original singer of the group was unable to sing one night due to a minor car accident, so Stratos stepped in to replace him, which began his venture into singing. His repertoire at that time was a mixture of soul, blues and rhythm and blues. In this period, Stratos also worked in many recording studios in Milan, playing keyboards.
In 1967, he joined the Italian beat band I Ribelli ("The Rebels") as the keyboard player. With I Ribelli, he recorded many hit singles like "Chi mi aiuterà", "Oh Darling!" and "Pugni chiusi", a song that became a symbol of the Italian 1960s, and Stratos' fame rapidly grew in Italy. In 1969, the band released their self-titled studio album, I Ribelli.
In 1970, he left I Ribelli and formed a musical group with some English musicians including the drummer Jan Broad, and started to dedicate himself to his work on music and voice research, experimenting with vocal phenomena. His interest in this research started when he observed his daughter, Anastassia (who was born in 1970), during her "babbling" phase, when a child is not yet able to speak correctly. Stratos noticed by watching his daughter that a child initially "plays" and "experiments" with her or his own voice, but then the richness of the vocal sound gets lost in the acquisition of verbal language. "The child loses the sound in order to organize the words". This observation by Stratos was fundamental for his poetry. This language-voice connection and his experimentation with it was the hallmark of his entire artistic career.
In 1971, he recorded the solo single "Daddy's dream" which was published by Numero Uno, a record company owned by Mogol and Lucio Battisti. His involvement with commercial music definitively ended after this one commercial recording.
In 1972, Demetrio Stratos and drummer Giulio Capiozzo founded Area, an Italian progressive rock, jazz fusion band. The original line-up included Eddie Busnello (saxophone), Patrick Djivas (bass), Leandro Gaetano (piano) and Johnny Lambizzi (lead guitar). Soon after, Busnello and Djivas left the group, and Patrizio Fariselli and Paolo Tofani joined the group. Djivas joined Premiata Forneria Marconi (PFM), and he was replaced by Ares Tavolazzi. Stratos recorded many records with Area, as well as in collaboration with Gianni Sassi, the owner of Cramps Records, on solo artist albums.
In 1973, Stratos took part in the eighth Biennale de Paris, and Area released their first studio album, Arbeit macht frei ("Work Brings Freedom"), taken from the inscription that was on the gate at the entrance of Auschwitz Nazi concentration camp.
In 1974, Area toured festivals in France, Portugal, and Switzerland. Stratos gradually became more and more deeply involved in the mysterious world of vocal sounds, resuming and widening his immense work on the importance of the voice in the Asian and Middle Eastern civilizations. In Milan, he worked together with Gianni Emilio Simonetti, Juan Hidalgo, and Walter Marchetti, founders of the group Zaj (an experimental music and performance art group formed in 1959), in the context of the Fluxus experience (an international network of artists, composers and designers noted for blending different artistic media and disciplines), and he then became involved with John Cage's music when he recorded Cage's "Sixty-Two Mesostics Re Merce Cunningham" in a version for a solo voice and microphone, subsequently performed at numerous festivals in front of large audiences mainly consisting of young people. At the festival of the proletarian youth in Lambro Park, Milan, Stratos introduced the Mesostics in front of 15,000 people. Later, this piece was partially included in the recordings dedicated to the music of Cage, Nova Musicha N. 1: John Cage (CRSLP 6101), which were published by Cramps Records and inaugurated the "Nova Musicha" series. In the meantime, Area recorded and released their second studio album, Caution Radiation Area.
In 1975, Stratos was involved with compared musicology and studied the problems of ethnic vocality, the vocal methods in East Asian music, and—in particular—the overtone singing techniques. He gradually became more and more deeply involved in the mysterious world of vocal sounds, widening his immense work on the importance of the voice in the Asian and Middle Eastern civilizations. Also in 1975, Area released their third studio album, Crac!.