Ilias Kementzides

Biography Ilias Kementzides was born in Nikolinka, Kazakhstan to Pontian Greek parents on April 2, 1926. His mother was a Caucasus Greek from Kars, and his father had emigrated to Russia from the Pontos in 1912. He had four siblings. When Kementzides was eight years old, he learned to play the lyra from his uncle, a musician. His family moved to Greece in 1940. They lived in Krya Vrysi outside of Thessaloniki in a community with other Pontian Greeks. In 2002, he performed at Music Around the Mediterranean, also in Astoria, Queens.

In 1989, Ilias Kementzides received the National Heritage Fellowship, an honor given to American folk artists by the National Endowment for the Arts. He was also featured in the film The Spirit Travels, a documentary about immigrant music in the United States.

Kementzides died in 2006 in his home in Norwalk.