Composer • Conductor • Musician

Nana Simopoulos is a composer, conductor, and musician whose work bridges the worlds of orchestral music, film, dance, and immersive multimedia. Her music is distinguished by its lyrical beauty, emotional depth, and the seamless integration of Greek and global musical traditions into a distinctive contemporary orchestral voice. Across a career spanning more than four decades, she has remained devoted to creating music that is melodic, expressive, and deeply human.

Current Work

Nana’s recent work reflects the culmination of a lifelong artistic journey. Her latest orchestral recording, Between Worlds, presents a collection of original symphonic works that celebrate melody, orchestral color, and the meeting of diverse musical traditions. Drawing on influences from Greece, the Mediterranean, the Middle East, India, and jazz, the music speaks with a contemporary voice while remaining accessible and emotionally engaging.

As both composer and conductor, Nana is committed to bringing her music directly to audiences through performances with orchestras in the United States and Europe, while developing collaborations with conductors, festivals, universities, and cultural organizations that embrace new music and cross-cultural artistic dialogue.

Immersive Art & Multimedia

Beyond the concert hall, Nana’s music has become an integral part of immersive multimedia experiences. She is the composer for Laia Cabrera Co.’s ongoing installations Perennial Land and Qualia, where her original scores provide the emotional landscape for large-scale visual environments presented in museums and contemporary art spaces. These collaborations reflect her continuing exploration of music as a bridge between sound, image, and human experience.

A Global Musical Voice

Long before the term “world music” became widely used, Nana was creating music that transcended cultural boundaries. Her ability to unite diverse musical traditions was memorably demonstrated at New York City’s Cathedral of St. John the Divine, where she conducted forty musicians representing Tibet, India, Turkey, Africa, Israel, and Greece in her original composition, I Will Remember You.

Her 1984 debut recording, Pandora’s Blues, featuring jazz legends Charlie Haden and Billy Higgins, received DownBeat Magazine’s Critics Choice recognition and established her as an innovative composer with a unique musical voice. She continued this artistic path with the acclaimed Enja Records releases Wings and Air and Still Waters, followed by the internationally celebrated collaboration with the late sarangi master Ustad Sultan Khan on Daughters of the Sun, which reached #1 on international radio charts. Her 2016 release Skins set the mystic poetry of Rumi, Kojiju, Owl Woman, Ganjavi and Hafez to richly textured original compositions featuring saxophonist Dave Liebman.