Simon Karas
Simon Karas (Lepreo ,21 May 1903 – Athens, 26 January 1999) was a Greek musicologist, who specialized in Byzantine music tradition.
Simon Karas was born in Lepreo, Zacharo municipality, Elis. He studied paleography of Byzantine musical notation, was active in collecting and preserving ancient musical manuscripts, collected performances of Greek folk songs and of Byzantine chant from different regions, in most cases writing them down in Byzantine notation, further altered and modified by him, to better match his needs. He also wrote his own music, and performed himself as a chanter or singer.
The figure of Simon Karas is highly controversial, and it strongly divides Byzantine music scholars and performers into two camps: one supporting, and one opposing his philosophy and his works. His opponents' chief argument is that some works and musical experiments of Simon Karas are highly non-traditional, at the edge of being heretical, at least from their point of view.
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