Sing-Along with Kyria Lioliou

Name: Sing-Along with Kyria Lioliou
Start: 2026-03-29T05:00:00+11:00
End: 2026-03-29T08:00:00+11:00
Location: Fairfield Amphitheatre

Schedule

Sun Mar 29 2026 at 05:00 am to 08:00 am

UTC+11:00

Location

Fairfield Amphitheatre | Melbourne, VI

Join a core group of singers and musicians to sing all your favorite Greek songs from Greek school - as well as classic tunes your grandparents and parents sang over the years.
Bring your cushions, musical instruments, water, and voices!
Kyria Vasiliki (Koula) Lioliou was the beating heart of the Academy of Modern Greek (AMG) Saturday language school in Melbourne (1967-1992).
Singing was one of the ways she shared her deep love of children, her motherland, her faith, for life and her fellow humans. She strongly believed singing together forges respectful relationships and creates community.
This sing-along is an event to honour her life with the songs she sang to us and the songs she sang to celebrate the gift of life - and to continue her legacy by bringing these songs to the next generation and beyond.
Timing
2:30 - 3:00 pm: Arrival and Seating
Event commences at 3 pm sharp
Please bring cushions, blankets, water bottles, and acoustic musical instruments
3:00 - 4:00 pm: Children's Songs
Sing-along songs and games in Greek for children aged 2 - 12
4:00 - 4:15 pm: Break
4:15 - 6:00 pm: Songs of the 20th Century
Greek songs popular through the span of Kyria Lioliou's life
Locations details
Fairfield Amphitheatre is located within Fairfield Park, a short walk from Fairfield Station.
Parking is available either in the small carpark on Fairfield Park Drive, or on Heidelberg Road.
The Amphitheatre is a short walk down the hill from the carpark, along a paved pathway.
Toilets are located near the carpark or at the Fairfield Boat House.
Kyria Lioliou
Vasiliki (Koula) Lioliou, a gifted teacher and life-long learner, was the beating heart of the Academy of Modern Greek (AMG), a Saturday language school founded in 1967 by a group of community leaders and run for 25 years by Spiros and Koula Liolios, both graduates of the Marasleios Academia, Athens.
Kyria Lioliou, as she is universally known, was passionate about education. As one of eight children growing up during the chaos and poverty of the WWII era, she dreamt of becoming a teacher - a path she saw as one of light, love, and service.
Trained in the pedagogy of Maria Montessori and Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, who both believed that children learn through activity, she saw teachers as facilitators rather than all-knowing holders of wisdom. Her methodology was very different to that of her peers. At the time she entered the profession, teachers were traditionally stern disciplinarians who dictated from the podium.
Kyria Lioliou abhorred the methods employed by teachers at the time: discipline was imposed through corporal punishment, and shaming or ridiculing children. Many Melbourne Greek-school alumni share incidents of being struck by rulers or switches, having to stand in the corner on one leg, or being denigrated by teachers.
Kyria Lioliou understood the many and varied difficulties facing the children of migrants. Accordingly, she put much thought and time into modifying the curriculum coming from Greece (text-books were supplied by the Greek education department annually), to create lesson plans for every class and subject covering Grade 1 to Form 6 (Years 1 to 12). She then trained the AMG teachers accordingly.
This was a monumental task, as resources were scarce or nonexistent. She was blessed with a photographic memory and she read voraciously. It was of advantage to her work that she was innately an open-minded, loving and accepting person, humble to a fault. These qualities enabled her to perceive the educational, spiritual, emotional, and physical needs of her students - and to support the teaching staff.
Ever imaginative and resourceful, she developed a relationship with every primary-school aged child (she taught in the secondary years only) through the personal diary (Ημερολόγιο) each child submitted every week on the understanding that they could write anything they wanted - and what they wrote was for her eyes only. In this way, Kyria Lioliou was able to monitor each child’s progress in the Greek language, as well as the effectiveness of their teachers; while, at the same time, picking up any family or social issues that may be affecting the child and impacting their well-being and academic progress.
Kyria Lioliou uncovered significant undiagnosed physical and mental health issues (eyesight, deafness, scoliosis, eating disorders, to name a few), bullying, sexual abuse, family trauma, dyslexia - all informed by the information she gleaned from the diary. This enabled her to provide support for every child and teacher.
Kyria Lioliou was a gifted teacher with a huge heart full of boundless love for all the children in the world. Teaching was her calling - and singing was one of the ways she shared her deep love of her motherland and its history and spirit, her delight and reverence in the miracle of life and the natural world, her joy in human connection and community, her faith, and her love of human beings. She believed singing together forges respectful relationships and creates community.
The Sing-Along with Kyria Lioliou is an event to honour her life with the songs she sang to us and the songs she sang to celebrate the gift of life - and to continue her legacy by bringing these songs to the next generation and beyond.