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Perfect Italian Diction for Singers is an authoritative resource for the aspiring and professional singer, vocal coach, and conductor. Cheek and Toccafondi build on traditional approaches while introducing successful innovative techniques, providing many musical examples and exercises. Also included are audio and video samples from native speakers.
List of contents
Recorded Examples and Exercises
Preface
1. The Basis for the Most Beautiful and Correct Lyric Italian Diction
2. The Seven Italian Vowel Sounds
3. The Essentials of Stress and Length
4. The Pronunciation of
e and
o5. The Italian Consonants
6. Double Consonants and Phrasal Doublings
7. Legato
8. Mastering Glides, Hiatus, Diphthongs, and Triphthongs
9. Italian Style
10. Working with Text
11. Best Use of Supplemental Resources
12. Recitative
Appendix A. Verb Endings
Appendix B. Essential Grammar
Selected References
Index
About the Authors
About the author
Timothy Cheek is Professor of Music at the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance. A leading expert on Czech vocal music, he is the author of Singing in Czech (2001/2014), The Janácek Opera Libretti, volumes I (2003), II (2004) and III (2016), The Bartered Bride/Prodaná nevesta (2010), and Rusalka (2012), published by Scarecrow Press and Rowman & Littlefield. Cheek is also the Series Editor of Rowman & Littlefield’s Lyric Diction series and is the co-author, along with Anna Toccafondi, of Perfect Italian Diction for Singers: An Authoritative Guide (2022), published by Rowman & Littlefield.Anna Toccafondi performs regularly in major festivals and theaters in Italy, Europe, and Japan. She recently began a cooperation with the Municipality and the Teatro Garibaldi of Modica (Sicily) for the project Cantare in Perfetto Italiano, Singing in Perfect Italian, a series of masterclasses devoted to foreign singers and collaborative pianists. Committed to unpublished or lesser known compositions of the Italian vocal repertoire, Toccafondi has done research, transcriptions, revisions, and recordings of important composers.
