I was wondering if any of you singers have any books with grade 7/8 standard arias and pieces that you would recommend me getting? I was thinking of getting, "The art of song". Would that be a good purchase?

NM

Yes, I'd definitely recommend The Art of Song books! I sang loads of pieces from them, not only for my Grade 8, but also for my GCSE (back in the day!). And they also tend to include the most popular items from the graded lists, rather than the more obscure ones, as well as including a good range of arias/lieder. For the more popular/musical theatre songs though The Singer's Musical Theatre Anthology vol. 1 is great, especially for sopranos, as it includes quite a few G8 set pieces (and loads of other great songs which I'd think would be around that standard, if not higher!)

Ooh, just had another thought! You proabably have it already, but if not then definitely think about getting Twenty-Four Italian Songs And Arias Of The Seventeenth And Eighteenth Centuries (pub. G Schirmer), which is filled with lots of aria antiche (sp?), lots of which are on the graded lists and all of which I would imagine would be about G7/8 standard! It's like a bible - I bought it 7 years ago and I'm still using it and learning new pieces from it!