New York Festival of Song Returns in November

 New York Festival of Song (NYFOS), led by Artistic Director Steven Blier, presents its annual NYFOS Next Festival with two performances on Sunday, October 15, 2023 at 3:00 p.m. and Sunday, November 19, 2023 at 3:00 p.m. at the Rubin Museum of Art. The two-concert mini-series for new song, curated by Nathaniel LaNasa, is in its 14th year.

The October 15th concert centers around the themes of frustrated communication, getting lost in translation, being misunderstood on purpose, and the tragedy and comedy of being known and unknown through language. The program features the world premiere performance of We Two, a song cycle by British composer Iain Bell with text by Walt Whitman. With the poet’s words living into the future, knowing or yearning for the other and leaving it unspoken, this exciting new work is performed by baritone Gregory Feldmann with curator LaNasa at the keyboard. In addition, soprano Robin Steitz will also appear in Reena Esmail’s Rosa de Sal with text by Pablo Neruda from a Spanish poem about self-obliterating love. Soprano Paulina Swierczek performs Andrew Cheung’s 2017 All thorn, but cousin to your rose with text by Vladimir Nabakov and others, speaking about the errors and sins of translation. Additional songs on the program include works by composers Gity Razaz, Hilary Purrington, Arlene Elizabeth Sierra, and Nkeiru Okoye. 

"This pair of concerts came to be out of a meditation on the limits of speech,” LaNasa said. “I’ve been on a hunt for music and words that reach for the inaccessible. These composers, singers, and songwriters have crystallized small worlds of paradox, incredulity, wonder, and yearning that illuminate surprising—and sometimes unsettling—shared realities.”

The series continues on Sunday, November 19, 2023 at 3:00 p.m. with a spotlight on singer-songwriters who come out of the classical tradition. The composer-performers featured include Molly Joyce, a musician whose limited mobility in her left hand has led  her to creative and idiosyncratic performance techniques, and made her a powerful advocate for people with disabilities; Dicky Dutton, whose work explores ritual and queer identity in a playfully improvisatory spirit; and Lucy Dhegrae, performing a piece for voice and electronics that fuses her deep background in experimental music with a new relationship to the language and materials of electronic dance music.

NYFOS Next Series at the Rubin Museum of Art

Sunday, October 15, 2023 at 3:00 p.m.
Rubin Museum of Art | 150 W 17th St | New York, NY 10011
Tickets: $25

Program:
Andrew Cheung - All thorn, but cousin to your rose (2017)
     Text by Vladimir Nabakov and others

Reena Esmail - Rosa de Sal (2020)
     Text by Pablo Neruda

Gity Razaz - Song of Acquaintance (2014) and Thirsty Fish (2014)
     Bilingual/English translation of Persian love poems

Iain Bell - We Two (2020)
     Text by Walt Whitman

Hilary Purrington - de Profundis and I sang (2012) 
     Text by Christine Rossetti and Carl Sandburg

Arlene Elizabeth Sierra - Look at six eggs (2008)
     Text by Carl Sandburg

Nkeiru Okoye - Twenty-eight Bathers (2022)
     Text by Walt Whitman

Artists:
Paulina Swierczek, soprano
Robin Steitz, soprano
Gregory Feldman, baritone
Nathaniel LaNasa, piano

NYFOS Next Series at the Rubin Museum of Art

Sunday, November 19, 2023 at 3:00 p.m.
Rubin Museum of Art | 150 W 17th St | New York, NY 10011
Tickets: $25

Works to be announced

Artists:
Molly Joyce, performance artist
Dicky Dutton, performance artist
Lucy Dhegrae, mezzo-soprano