Kalomira


Maria Kalomira Sarantis, known professionally as Kalomira, is a Greek-American singer. Born and raised on Long Island, she first came to prominence in Greece in 2004, after winning the Greek talent show Fame Story. She has subsequently released four studio albums, represented Greece in the 2008 Eurovision Song Contest, and hosted various television shows.

Early life

Kalomira was born Maria Kalomira Sarantis on January 31, 1985, in West Hempstead, Long Island. Known to her immediate family as Carol, her parents, Nikos and Eleni Sarantis, own a Greek restaurant. Her ancestry is from Laconia, Peloponnese. Since childhood, Kalomoira had the ambition to become a pop star. She played the viola, which she studied for nine years and played in the school orchestra. She was also Miss West Hempstead at her high school in 2003. In 2003, she entered a music contest organized by WBLI Radio and won second place. Following her appearance, she opened up several live shows with famous American artists, such as Jessica Simpson, LL Cool J, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Michelle Branch and Nick Lachey.

Career

2003–2004: ''Fame Story'', ''Kalomira'', and ''Lampsi''

Kalomira entered the New York City auditions for Antenna's reality singing competition Fame Story 2, which was a licensed variant of the Star Academy franchise. She was one of two selected from over 200 auditions in New York. Despite speaking primarily English, and not speaking Greek fluently, Kalomira went to Greece after having completed one semester of college at Adelphi University where she was a music major with a scholarship. Kalomira placed first and her professional singing career began. Kalomira won the contest, earned 200,000 Euros and a recording contract with Heaven Music. The audience of the show loved her from the first time and they created the slogan "Irthes kai mas allakses ti moira, Kalomoira-Kalomoira".
Kalomira performed in Thessaloniki’s FOCUS from July 8 to August 14. While entertaining audiences by night, she was recording her first album by day. Outside of Greece, Kalomira has appeared on NBC’s "Today Show" and "Access Hollywood" during the events of the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, UPN's Greek Parade where she sang live and was interviewed, Fox News, was in the "Washington Post", "Newsday" and "New York Times" and most currently featured on Oprah for her Eurovision Performance, along with a number of other shows and websites. On September 1, 2004, Kalomira released her 15-track debut album Kalomira, which went gold in Greece and Cyprus. Her lead single, "Nomizeis", became an instant hit and topping the charts in Greece. Next singles from the album was the songs "Ego eimai i Kalomira", "Pethaino Gia Sena", "Proti Mou Fora" and the christmas "Kai Tou Hronou". She then toured Greece accompanied by the rest of the "Fame Story" participants with appearances in Athens's "Thalassa". In the same year, she closed her season at the REX studio with Despina Vandi and Thanos Petrelis. Kalomira received good reviews from critics and was awarded "Woman of the Year – Best Newcomer" by Life and Style magazine. Also in 2004, she had a minor credited role in the longest-running Greek TV drama series Lampsi, playing the part of Jennifer Drakou for 30 episodes, where veteran director Nikos Foskolos compared her to Aliki Vougiouklaki. Also, Kalomira performed twice in Herodium theatre like a surprise cake for Dionysis Savvopoulos's birthday and she sang Marilyn Monroe's song, "Happy Birthday Mr. President".

2005–2006: ''Paizeis?'', ''I Kalomira Paei Cinema'', and ''Pio Poly Tin Kiriaki''

In 2005, Kalomira released her second album titled Paizeis? with 12 songs, of which two were written and composed by her. "Paizeis" and "Ki Olo Perimeno" were the two singles from the album that stood out with great success. She also agreed to appear with Elli Kokkinou, Andreas Stamos and Constantinos Christoforou at the Piraeus 130 music club. In her program, she included covers of songs such as "Scandalous," "Don't Cha" and "Don't Phunk with My Heart," in addition to songs from her first and second albums. On April 11, 2005, she was a special guest on the first live concert of the first season of Star Academy Bulgaria. For three months she had the role of co-hostess next to Eleonora Meleti on the show Proinos Cafes.
In the fall of 2006, Kalomira became the female co-hostess on the hit Sunday night show Pio Poli Tin Kiriaki alongside Grigoris Arnaoutoglou on Mega Channel. In December, she released her third studio album I Kalomira Paei Cinema. It's a concept album with the most popular classic songs from the old Greek Cinema. At that time they appeared with Nikos Makropoulos, Aggeliki Iliadi and Sarbel at the Fever nightclub.

2007–2009: Eurovision Song Contest, ''Secret Combination: The Album'', and ''Big in Japan''

At the end of 2007, Heaven Music chose Kalomira to be their contestant in the 2008 National Final to represent Greece in the Eurovision Song Contest 2008. Kalomira picked an R&B style upbeat song with a Greek feel composed by Konstantinos Pantzis with lyrics by Poseidonas Giannopoulos titled "Secret Combination". The song has an "American production" feel to it. On February 27, 2008, Kalomira won the National Final with "Secret Combination" and represented Greece in the Eurovision Song Contest 2008. To promote the song, Kalomira had a pre-Eurovision tour and visited several Eurovision countries throughout March and April.
In the first semi final, held on May 20, 2008, Kalomira fared well, coming in first place while at the Eurovision final, on May 24, she came in third behind Russia and Ukraine, with 218 points. In an interview with Eleni Menegaki, she said that above all she wanted the Greek people to be proud of the performance.
Kalomira announced on her online diary that she recorded her new album during September and October 2007 in Greece. The album, named Secret Combination: The Album, was released on May 29, 2008, and contained songs in both Greek and English, including her Eurovision entry "Secret Combination". There is also a bonus rap remix of "Secret Combination" by Master Tempo. The writers are Konstantinos Pantzis, Tasos Vougiatzis and Sunny X. Kalomira did not participate in the promotion of the album, due to a dispute with Heaven Music. She focused on presenting TV shows, including the Greek version of the game show Big in Japan which took place in Japan and featured 12 contestants. For this tv show, Kalomira won two awards at the European Festival, the Best Show 2009 and the Best Reality Show 2009.

2010–2014: International collaborations, hiatus and concert tours

In January 2010, it was announced that Kalomira would be featured in a series of advertisements as the main spokesperson promoting Domino's Pizza in Greece. In March 2010, Kalomira renewed her contract with Heaven Music. For her next single she collaborated with big producers in the world music industry. The single was called "Please Don't Break My Heart", which featured American rapper, Fatman Scoop and was produced by Toni Cottura. The video was filmed in Turkey and the song premiered on Rythmos 94.9.
In June 2011, Kalomira released her next single, which called "This Is The Time'". A music video premiered in July. In the summer of 2011 she toured Greece and Cyprus and then returned to America performing live concerts for Greeks abroad. On December 31, Kalomira did a concert for a charite causes, "Bring in 2012 with Kalomira!", for Greek Orthodox people in Washington DC. On February 22, 2012, her new single was released, only for husband's music company "Hot Kiss Records LLC", and was called "Other Side Tonight". The song was written by GMoney and Jeremy Beaber. On 2 March, Kalomira was presented with Australia's comedian actor Angelo Tsarouchas, a beauty pageant Greek Beauty Pageant - Kalistia 2012 in Canada. After that she was on a hiatus for two years due to the pregnancy of her twins.
In March 2014, Kalomira came back to Greece after two and a half years since her last appearance. She gave many interviews on television and magazines, and she sang as a guest star with Claydee Lupa the new version of "Secret Combination", in the national final of Greece's entry in the Eurovision Song Contest 2014.
She started to do a concert tour in USA. The first stop was on June 3, 2014, in a football game for Greece and Nigeria in Philadelphia, where she sang the Greek national anthem and many songs. On June 6, she performed for the first time in Baltimore in the concert "St. Nicholas Greek Folk Festival 2014 featuring: Kalomira!". On July 23, she performed in New York City in the concert "The Loukoumi make a difference foundation". She performed with Anna Vissi, Gloria Gaynor, Constantine Maroulis and Olympia Dukakis.
In a 2014 interview, Kalomira said that she started her music career when she was eighteen and half years old. She has expressed herself through her music over a span of more than 10 years. Her music describes what she has gone through in her life.

2015–2021: ''Rising Star'', various digital singles and second hiatus

In the summer of 2015, Kalomira made a appearance on MAD VMA 2015 performing a new summer song titled "This Is Summer" released by Panik Records. Also, she gave some TV interviews and left for USA until the last month of 2016. That was a second hiatus from Kalomira because she gave birth to her third child.
In December 2016, Kalomira returned to Greece and recorded a Greek-language Christmas single titled "Ta Christougenna Afta", which was accompanied by an English version titled "Christmas Time" and released by Heaven Music. Kalomira participated as a hostess at the backstage of the new music talent show Rising Star. Her next singles were "Shoot 'em Down" and "Lipstick 2017". The former was written by the producers of "Secret Combination".
From 2018 to 2020, Kalomira released the singles, "Mommy Loves You" dedicated to her children and "Gia Mia Zoi" in Greek and "You're Not Alone" in English version, which she wrote during the coronavirus pandemic. During these years, in 2019, she appeared on the fashion show MadWalk performing Ariana Grande's song "No Tears Left To Cry".