Tzeni Vanou

Biography: Tzeni Vanou (Greek: Τζένη Βάνου, born Eugenia Vrachnou; 10 February 1939 – 5 February 2014) was a Greek singer, born in Athens. She had planned on studying physics, but she met her mentor, Greek composer Mimis Plessas, who persuaded her to become a singer. She began her career in 1959 performing with the ERT orchestra. In 1964, she won first prize in the Thessaloniki Song Festival. At age 74, she died at a Piraeus hospital in 2014 from cancer. During her last few months, she had undergone surgery to remove a tumor in her larynx.