Gerard Souzay (8 December 1918 – 17 August 2004) was a French baritone, regarded as one of the very finest interpreters of melodie (French art song) in the generation after Charles Panzera and Pierre Bernac. 　　He was born Gerard Marcel Tisserand, but later adopted the stage name of Souzay from a village on the river Loire. He came from a musical family in Angers, France. His parents had met at one of the first performances of Pelleas et Melisande in 1902; his mother and two brothers were singers, and his sister, 15 years older, was the soprano Genevieve Touraine, who gave the first performance of Poulenc's Fiançailles pour rire in 1942. After his schooling at the College Rabelais in Chinon, he went to the Sorbonne in Paris to study philosophy, and while there he met the singer Pierre Bernac, who encouraged him to study singing. 　　Souzay entered the Paris Conservatoire in 1940, studying with Claire Croiza and Jean-Emil Vanni-Marcoux. He actually began singing as a tenor, but in 1943, with advice from the leading operatic singer Henri Etcheverry, he became a baritone. He graduated from the Conservatoire in 1945 with two first prizes, the Prix de chant and the Prix de vocalise. While at the Conservatoire, he also tried his hand at composition and in 1942 three of his settings of poems by Paul Valery were given a performance by Pierre Bernac. He went on to study voice with Bernac, although he subsequently expressed some differences with the latter's methods and ideas on pronunciation. He was eager not to limit himself to being a specialist in the French repertoire, and he made a detailed study of German lieder with Lotte Lehmann. 　　Gerard Souzay's public appearances began in 1945 with recitals and concerts, including a performance of Faure's Requiem in a centenary tribute to the composer at the Royal Albert Hall in London. He rapidly established an international career as a recitalist, admired not only in French music but also for his command of the German repertoire, especially Schubert and Schumann. In recital, his first accompanist was Jacqueline Bonneau (who had been his contemporary at the Paris Conservatoire), but she was reluctant to travel and from 1954 onwards he formed a close partnership with the American pianist Dalton Baldwin which continued for the rest of his career. The two completed three tours of Southern Africa (1958 -1973) to wildly enthusiastic audiences 　　Souzay's exceptional linguistic gifts enabled him to sing convincingly in 13 different languages including Hebrew, Portuguese and Russian. In contemporary music he performed in Honegger's La danse des morts and in the world premiere of Stravinsky's Canticum Sacrum. The composer Jacques Leguerney (1906–1997) wrote many songs for Souzay and for his sister. Souzay also sang Jocelyne Binet's Cycle de Mélodies on seven poems by Paul Éluard in a 1955 recital program.