The Encyclopedia of French Art Song: Fauré, Debussy, Ravel, Poulenc is ideal for student and professional singers, pianists, voice teachers, and anyone interested in French art song and culture. This multi-disciplinary work is a unique single source, fusing encyclopedic entries on songs, poems, poets, historical and cultural figures and movements with a dictionary of pertinent nouns and adjectives. It provides both facts and context in an authoritative yet engaging style. The book is cross-referenced for greater ease in finding information relevant to each song discussed.

Frank Daykin: Frank Daykin is a pianist, musicologist, writer, and teacher. Decades of experience in vocal accompanying, with a specialty in French art song, have included the master classes of such legendary figures as Gérard Souzay, Elly Ameling, Pierre Bernac, and Thomas Grubb, to name only a few, and teaching the “Singer and Accompanist” class in the Juilliard Evening Division. Daykin’s bi-weekly blog, containing mini-essays on music and arts topics, “Before and After Silence,” has become an internet destination. (www.innovativemusicprograms.com/blogs) He is also sought after as a program note writer for classical labels Connoisseur Society, Albany, Quattro Corde, and various chamber music and symphony organizations. His lecture/demonstrations on subjects are far-ranging as Schoenberg, Schubert, Ravel, Beethoven, Shostakovich, Elgar, Messiaen, and Schumann are the most popular events at the Chamber Music Conference/Composers’ Forum of the East, of which he is a faculty member. Daykin’s two volumes of poetry “Islands” and “Words Without Songs” were published by Silver Hill Press. Numerous extracts from them have been set to music by contemporary American composers. Alexander and Daykin, a piano duo now in its thirty-second year, was named “surely one of the finest piano duos in the world today” by the Toronto Citizen, on the occasion of their release of Bach’s Die Kunst der Fuge, which was also an American Record Guide “Top Ten” release. Daykin is also a member of the Ambrosia Trio. He was one of the first pianists to play the complete piano music of Ravel on the newly-restored Erard piano in Ravel’s home, a French national museum. A member of the American Musicological Society, Daykin also maintains a private vocal studio in New York City.