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When she was eight, she went to [[Athens]] with her family and she begun playing the piano, the instrument she studied till the graduation at the town's Conservatory, fifteen years later. In [[1967]], the military coup of the colonels forced her to flee to Paris, where she studied ethnic music. There she played with jazz musicians and undertook a career as the composer of popular songs for some famous [[Greek]] singers.

In balance between Classic tradition, jazz and Balkans culture, '''Eleni Karaindrou''' released compositions only apparently simply, starting from one thematic point that are dilated in a delicate sonorous mosaic. A kaleidoscope of sounds influenced by the Byzantine psalms and the Balkan folk (Greek, Serbian and Bulgarian, in particular). But in this music you can also find some traces of the New Age. Her instrumental themes flow slowly through a sequence of melodies, sometimes bare some other rich. A music always pervaded by a suffering and poetic soul. The result in the live concerts is exalted by the executions of a great solo musician, the violinist Kim Kashkashian, and by the performances of famous orchestras like the Stuttgarter Kammerorchester. But Eleni still considers herself as a popular music composer: "I like to hear people singing the 'Beekeeper' waltz in the streets of Athens". It was also the favourite theme of the actor Marcello Mastroianni. "Once he wanted me to play it all night long. Every time I came to the end, he gazed at me and asked: 'Please, Eleni, once again'".