Metaxa Hospitality Group Renames Convention Center to Honor Mikis Theodorakis

The Metaxa Hospitality Group recently renamed its convention center on Crete to honor the longtime contribution to Greek culture of the late Mikis Theodorakis, the legendary composer and lyricist.

Located on the premises of the group’s Creta Maris Beach Resort in Heraklion, the convention center is the largest on Crete covering an area of ​​6,000 square meters.

The convention center’s name change was announced during a special ceremony on September 3 that included a performance by Maria Farandouris, one of Theodorakis’ closest musical collaborators who took his songs around the world.

“Our initiative is the least we can do to honor the personality, work and contribution of Mikis Theodorakis, who left his mark on Greek culture in the second half of the 20th century and traveled Greece all over the world,” Metaxa Hospitality Group said in an announcement.

Credited with over 1,000 works, up until his death in September 2021 at age 96, Mikis Theodorakis was Greece’s best-known living composer. Some of his best-known works include his scores for films “Zorba the Greek” (1964) and “Serpico” (1973). His “Mauthausen Trilogy”, also known as “The Ballad of Mauthausen”, has been described as the “most beautiful musical work” ever written about the Holocaust. He had also set into music the works of Nobel-Prize nominees Yiannis Ritsos and Angelos Sikelianos, as well as Nobel-Prize laureate’s Odysseus Elytis’ Axion Esti.

As revealed during the ceremony, back in 2006 Theodorakis had presented his personal theory of Universal Harmony at an international scientific symposium organized by the University of Crete in the convention center of the Creta Maris Beach Resort.

“It is with great pleasure that we renamed Metaxa Hospitality Group’s convention center to the ‘Mikis Theodorakis Convention Center’, in honor of this great Greek who spread ‘Greece’ all over the world and at the same time fought passionately for freedom, peace and respect for diversity,” Metaxa Hospitality Group CEO Andreas Metaxas said.

Mikis Theodorakis was also a known political activist who was a key voice in raising worldwide awareness against the 1967-74 military dictatorship in Greece.

“His example inspires all of us at Metaxa Hospitality Group in our daily efforts, to promote the ‘brand’ Greece and to promote a new model of sustainable, tourism development, with total respect for the environment, equal employment opportunities for all and measurable added value for local communities of the destinations in which we operate,” Metaxas said.

Based on the Greek island of Crete, the Metaxa Hospitality Group operates three high-end resorts: the Creta Maris Beach Resort (681 rooms) and the TUI Magic Life (TML) Candia Maris on Crete; and the Santo Maris Oia Luxury Suites & Spa (57 rooms) on Santorini.