New York Festival Of Song Releases Paul Bowles' A PICNIC CANTATA Next Month

New York Festival of Song (NYFOS) releases Paul Bowles' A Picnic Cantata on its in-house label NYFOS Records on Friday, November 18, 2022. Recorded at Merkin Hall at Kaufman Music Center on February 22 and 23, 2017, A Picnic Cantata features sopranos Amy Owens and Chelsea Shephard, mezzo-sopranos Amanda Lynn Bottoms and Naomi Louisa O'Connell, and percussionist Barry Centanni, together with NYFOS Artistic Director Steven Blier and co-founder Michael Barrett on the piano.

A Picnic Cantata is the result of a one-time collaboration between the piano-duo team of Arthur Gold and Robert Fizdale, the composer Paul Bowles, and the poet James Schuyler. When the two pianists received a commission for a new vocal work from the arts patroness Alice Esty, they tapped Bowles to compose the music and Schuyler to write the libretto. Originally premiered at New York's Town Hall in 1953, A Picnic Cantata was well-received, but never published.

The seven-movement work balances sensuality with innocence and lightness with hints of foreboding. In its hyper-realistic world, a picnic basket seems to hold the entire contents of Zabar's and a car materializes on cue, as four friends-two sopranos and two altos-magically gather together. Bowles' music dips into the exotic sounds of Morocco and Ceylon, Poulenc-style post-impressionism, and pure American tunefulness to paint the journey, and Schuyler's libretto melds the directness of Gertrude Stein with the fantasy of Maurice Sendak, allowing simple things to become paradoxical and mysterious.

Having wanted to make a studio recording of the work for over three decades, Mr. Blier said, "Paul Bowles' A Picnic Cantata has been something of a NYFOS signature since the early 1990s. Alternatively spiky and lyrical, utterly unpredictable, and oddly graceful, Bowles' music won me over. Coming home to Paul Bowles' music and James Schuyler's words has been a pleasure and something of a revelation. In the 25 years since we first encountered A Picnic Cantata, we've learned more about both the composer and the poet. Its colors seem more vibrant than ever."

NYFOS' 2022-23 season also includes: Kabarett on Wednesday, November 16, 2022 at 8:00pm with soprano Sari Gruber, mezzo-soprano Naomi Louisa O'Connell, baritone Justin Austin, and Steven Blier; Amor on Wednesday, February 15, 2023 at 8:00pm with mezzo-sopranos Lucia Bradford and Kate Lindsey, bass-baritone Federico De Michelis, and others to be announced, together with pianist Steven Blier; and Mediterranean on Tuesday, March 14, 2023 at 8:00pm featuring Caramoor's 2023 Schwab Vocal Rising Stars with pianists Steven Blier and Bénédicte Jourdois.

All NYFOS programming is funded, in part, by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature.