Dimitris Dragatakis first stepped on the path of his long career in music at a young age in Epirus when he began learning the violin, and later continued his studies in Athens at the National Conservatoire. Music was and remained his main focus in life and this passion informed all of his important decisions, from childhood when he constructed and played a corn leaf violin to the twenty-one year period he played viola for the National Opera House, on to composing his String Quartet no. 7, a piece he held in his hands hours before his passing. The sound of stringed instruments was the ideal vehicle for Dimitris Dragatakis to express his thoughts and his string quartets are his most complete collection of musical works. Although he only started to write music regularly in the fourth decade of his life, the mind of Dragatakis was always that of a composer; referring to himself as a “ruminant being” goes some way to explaining his late start. He gathered knowledge and experience, images and words incapable of being expressed or described, and memories enough to fill another lifetime, and all these poured into his compositions.