Singing in Greek

In Singing in Greek: A Guide to Greek Lyric Diction and Vocal Repertoire, Lydía Zervanos reveals to singers the vast riches of Greek vocal music. Dating back to 1770, Greek art music—following the Western European styles, often drawing on themes from folk music and motifs—long awaits its rightful place in a truly international vocal repertoire. Modern singers in search of new musical opportunities will find in Singing in Greek the necessary tools to locate and perform art songs and arias from this extensive national vocal repertoire.

Concisely written and full of practical advice, the book opens with an introduction to the Greek alphabet and pronunciation, navigating the assignment of International Phonetic Alphabet symbols. Zervanos covers such topics as Greek vowels, digraphs, consonants, binary consonants, consonant combinations, palatalization, basic Greek grammatical concepts and their role in stress and length, syllabification, and punctuation—all separated into easily referenced chapters and supported by online recordings of native Greek opera singers.

In the second half of Singing in Greek, Zervanos offers a short history of Greek art music, biographies of prominent Greek composers, texts of their most representative works with IPA transcriptions, and word-for-word and poetic translations, with arias and art songs chosen for all voice types and levels. This book also includes indexes of direct vowel-to-IPA and consonant-to-IPA transcriptions, as well as useful appendixes on publications, organizations, and famous Greek poets.

Singing in Greek is a must-have resource for every singer, voice teacher, vocal coach, collaborative pianist, and opera and choral conductor seeking to perform and teach in this unique language, explore the wealth of music available, and expand their knowledge of Greek repertoire.