Christopher King: Greek-American Music in the Early 20th Century

Sponsored by: Hellenic University Club of Philadelphia, Dean C. And Zoë S. Pappas Interdisciplinary Center for Hellenic Studies of Stockton University, Greek American Heritage Society of Philadelphia

Co-hosts: Zilberman Family Center for Global Collections

Because few nationalities lay such a primal claim to their folk music as Greeks, it follows that we often feel that music must originate on the home soil, in situ, for it to retain its national or ethnic character. But this is certainly not the case with the folk music of Greece. From 1910 to 1932 the overwhelming majority of Greek-language 78 rpm disc recordings were recorded and manufactured in the United States. By the mid 1920s, nearly 1/6th of all phonograph disc sales in the United States were of Greek or Asia Minor music.

A preview of a highly anticipated exhibit at the Gennadius Library at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, the presentation layers historical recordings, including 78 rpm discs from King's collection, readings, photographs, and live musical performance to tell the dynamic story of Greek folk music—preservation, innovation, creativity, and entrepreneurship—and the significant role that the United States played.

About the Speaker

Christopher C. King is an ethnomusicologist, writer, producer, and advocate of traditional music. Over the course of twenty-five years, he has produced 353 CD collections of historical folk music from around the world. In 2002 he won a Grammy Award in the Best Historical Album category and has been nominated seven more times. In 2018 he wrote a book about the traditional folk music of northwestern Greece, “Lament from Epirus” (published by W. W. Norton & Company), and in the same year it was translated into Greek by DOMA publications (Greek title: Ηπειρώτικο Μοιρολόι). Mr. King’s book and related traditional southern Balkan music collections have received widespread critical success. Over the last twelve years, he has brought international attention to the ‘mirologi’ of Epirus, the songs and dances of Greece, and the deep cultures that still thrive in the southern Balkans. Bringing The New York Times to Epirus in 2014, coordinating a major documentary in the region in 2017, and presenting the music of Greece across Europe and America from 2018-2024, Mr. King is a tireless and devoted advocate of the music of the southern Balkans.

Mr. King has worked as a digital preservation specialist for the Library of Congress and the Mayrent Institute for Yiddish Culture. Additionally, he has been a professional museum consultant in the United States and has presented his work in a variety of publications and venues including TEDx, the New York Public Library, the Gennadius Library, Megaron–Athens Concert Hall Music Library (with Lambros Liavas), the Library of Congress, and the “Paris Review of Books.” He is the editor (chair) of the illustrious “Association for Recorded Sound Collections” journal. Over the course of the last ten years, he has built the largest, most complete collection of southern Balkan music on the 78-rpm disc format. In the spring of 2022, Mr. King was awarded a Public Diplomacy Grant by the US State Department to deliver lectures in Greece on the contributions of Greek-Jewish women to Greek folk music. In the summer of 2022, he was awarded honorary Greek citizenship for his work in promoting the music of Greece. In the fall of 2022, he managed the US tour of Isokratisses, an all-woman ensemble of Greek-Albanian polyphonic singers. Since 2023, King has curated Onassis Stegi’s internationally acclaimed three-day festival “Why the Mountains are Black” in Konitsa, Epirus.

Featured image: “Panhellenion Records Label, the First Greek-owned Recording Company, circa 1920,”  from the collection of Christopher C. King