Stelios Petrakis was born in 1975.In 1982 he begun studying the lyra at the Municipal School of Music in Sitia, Crete with Yiannis Dadolos, Ross Daly and Eleni Dretaki.

Since 1993 with the guidance of Ross Daly he begun exploring the musical traditions of other instruments (saz and lute from Crete and Istanbul).

At the same time he begun to construct musical instruments. He has been performing with Ross Daly since 1994, as well as with Giorgos Xylouris since 1998. In 2002 he released his first CD together with the Iranian percussionist Bijan Chemirani titled Stin Akri tou Dounia on the French label L'Empreinte Digitale (www.lempreintedigitale.com ).