Ancient Greek Music to Modern Ears

With four bachelor degrees under her belt, classicist/composer/musician/singer Bettina Joy De Guzman is a rising star in the ancient Greek music scene. Yes, you read that right, ancient Greek music. Although the only surviving musical composition from ancient Greece to currently exist in a complete form is the Epitaph of Seikelos, (which De Guzman has performed and recorded several times), academics and musicians around the world have been connecting to piece together the puzzle of how ancient Greek music actually sounded, and in more recent years a genre based on live and recorded performances has started to take shape, mainly due to popular demand.

Raised in the Philippines until the age of eight and then moving with her family to Orange County, California where she still lives today, De Guzman has since last summer started travelling to Greece and other countries to collaborate with academics and musicians in producing and presenting the music that, through scientific as well as intuitive interpretation, they believe is the closest thing they can reproduce according to its creation millennia ago.

When she’s not travelling to perform through song and playing the Lyra (she has, she says, perhaps the largest collection of Lyras in the world) she teaches Latin and Ancient Greek, as well as music from those periods, to children aged 13-18 at her local high-school. “I have conducted lots of research and am carrying out ongoing research for the Getty Villa in Los Angeles, which is a replica of an ancient Herculean Villa and houses only ancient works, from the Cycladic era (2000BC) to Roman sculptures. I take my students there and show them around,” she says.

https://greekcitytimes.com/2018/10/17/ancient-greek-music-to-modern-ears/?amp

National Archaeological Museum of Athens presents a special exhibition, June 18, 6 pm.

http://thegreekobserver.com/tag/musician-and-historian-bettina-joy-de-guzman/

Metamorphoses: Gods and Mortals in The Age of Hadrian: Two lyres, in a dialogue between Romans and Greeks. Bettina Joy de Guzman sings in original Latin text with lyre, while Nikos accompanies the recitation by the public with lyre.

"Bettina Joy De Guzman, a multifaceted musician and historian who revives ancient Latin and Greek music and composes remanufactured historical instruments using traditional rhythms and performances, will play an ancient form and will sing using the Latin text. Besides, Dr. Nikos Xanthoulis, a composer and award-winning scholar of ancient Greek music, who recently wrote and presented in Greece and Europe the first soloist work on ancient lyra and symphony orchestra, will musically accompany the audience to reading extracts from the text Ovid (translated by Andreas N. Michalopoulos and Charilaos N. Michalopoulos). Also, poems by Antonis Makrydimitris from the book OBIDANA, inspired by the great Roman poet and his work, will also be read, offering a modern dimension in the ways that ancient myths can be approached and revived."

Ancient music specialists accompany Ovid readings at National Museum

Musician and historian Bettina Joy De Guzman and composer Nikos Xanthoulis will accompany on copies of ancient string instruments excerpts from Ovid's "Metamorphoses", read by audience members at the National Archaeological Museum on Monday, June 18.

De Guzman revives ancient Latin and Greek music and composes pieces for reconstructed historical instruments. She will play the ancient forminx, which resembles a lyre, and will sing in Latin.

https://www.amna.gr/en/article/266049/Ancient-music-specialists-accompany-Ovid-readings-at-National-Museum