New York Festival Of Song Opens 35th Season With HEROES At Kaufman Music Center, September 28

New York Festival of Song (NYFOS), led by Artistic Director Steven Blier, opens its 2022-23 Mainstage Series with HEROES on Wednesday, September 28, 2022 at 8:00pm at Merkin Hall, co-presented by Kaufman Music Center.

The concert features mezzo-soprano Kara Dugan, baritone John Brancy, violinist Charles Yang, with pianists Peter Dugan and Artistic Director Steven Blier. The program, a vibrant and eclectic tribute to the men and women who inspire us, first premiered as part of NYFOS@Home Digital Series in 2021 and presents songs by Gluck, Schubert, Bernstein, Stevie Wonder, Bob Dylan, and others.

NYFOS 35th season, which also marks Mr. Blier's 50th year as a professional musician, is devoted to the idea of resilience.

"John Brancy, Charles Yang, and the two Dugans (Peter and Kara) are a modern dream team," said Mr. Blier. "I worked with all of them when they were students, and they have gone on to be accomplished professionals with skyrocketing careers. In a miraculous stroke of luck, they were all in town this September to reprise and expand a concert we first offered as a video a year ago. At that time I proposed the theme of heroism, on a hunch that it would resonate with them. And they came up with a
refreshing, multifaceted look at what it means to be a hero in 2022. These four artists are peerless technicians whose virtuosity is at the service of a dazzling musical imagination. They inspire me and give me hope for the future. They are my heroes."

NYFOS' 2022-23 season also includes: Kabarett on Wednesday, November 16, 2022 at 8:00pm with soprano Sari Gruber, mezzo-soprano Naomi 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.

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Concert Information

HEROES
September 28, 2022 at 8:00pm
Merkin Hall at Kaufman Music Center
Link: https://www.kaufmanmusiccenter.org/mch/event/new-york-festival-of-song-heroes/

Kara Dugan, mezzo-soprano
John Brancy, baritone
Charles Yang, violin
Peter Dugan, piano
Steven Blier, piano

Program to include:

GUSTAV HOLST: Prometheus, from The Planets
Franz Schubert: An die Leier
Christoph Willibald Gluck: Dance of the Blessed Spirits, from Orfeo ed Euridice
WILLIAM SCHUMAN: Orpheus with his lute
LEONARDO DUGAN War Chant
Florence Price: Heart of a Woman
James Taylor: Shed a Little Light
CHARLES IVES: The Greatest Man
TRAD., arr CH. YANG: Ambush on All Sides
Leonard Bernstein: So Pretty
Stevie Wonder: Sir Duke
OSCAR STRAUS: My Hero
Bob Dylan: Forever Young

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.

NYFOS Mainstage is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

Tickets:
Four-concert subscriptions are currently available for $160 to $260. Single tickets, priced at $20 to $70, will go on-sale later this month.

Now in its 35th season, New York Festival of Song (NYFOS) is dedicated to creating intimate song concerts of great beauty and originality. Weaving music, poetry, history, and humor into evenings of compelling theater, NYFOS fosters community among artists and audiences. Each program entertains and educates in equal measure.

Founded by pianists Michael Barrett and Steven Blier in 1988, NYFOS continues to produce its series of thematic song programs, drawing together rarely-heard songs of all kinds, overriding traditional distinctions between musical genres, exploring the character and language of other cultures, and the personal voices of song composers and lyricists.

Since its founding, NYFOS has particularly celebrated American song. Among the many highlights is the double bill of one-act comic operas, Bastianello and Lucrezia, by John Musto and William Bolcom, both with libretti by Mark Campbell, commissioned and premiered by NYFOS in 2008 and recorded on Bridge Records. In addition to Bastianello and Lucrezia and the 2008 Bridge Records release of Spanish Love Songs with Joseph Kaiser and the late Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, NYFOS has produced five recordings on the Koch label, including a Grammy Award-winning disc of Bernstein's Arias and Barcarolles, and the Grammy-nominated recording of Ned Rorem's Evidence of Things Not Seen (also a NYFOS commission) on New World Records. In 2014, Canción Amorosa, a CD of Spanish song-Basque, Catalan, Castilian, and Sephardic-was released on the GPR label, with soprano Corinne Winters accompanied by Steven Blier.

Their latest endeavor is NYFOS Records, which released its first album (From Rags to Riches, with Stephanie Blythe and William Burden) in January of 2022. They also issue a monthly single, with archival performances by artists such as Lorraine Hunt Lieberson and Bernarda Fink, and newly recorded songs by Joshua Blue and Sasha Cooke. NYFOS Records has reached rapidly growing audiences in over 100 countries, with well over 110,000 plays since its inception in November of 2021.

In November 2010, NYFOS debuted NYFOS Next, a mini-series for new songs, hosted by guest composers in intimate venues, including OPERA America's National Opera Center, National Sawdust, the DiMenna Center for Classical Music, the Ann Goodman Recital Hall at Kaufman Music Center, and now the Rubin Museum in Chelsea.

NYFOS is passionate about nurturing the artistry and careers of young singers, and has developed training residencies around the country, including with The Juilliard School's Ellen and James S. Marcus Institute for Vocal Arts (now in its 16th year); Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts (its 14th year in March 2022); San Francisco Opera Center (over 20 years as of February 2018); Glimmerglass Opera (2008-2010); and its newest project, NYFOS@North Fork in Orient, NY.

NYFOS's concert series, touring programs, radio broadcasts, recordings, and educational activities continue to spark new interest in the creative possibilities of the song program, and have inspired the creation of thematic vocal series around the world.

Steven Blier is the Artistic Director of the New York Festival of Song (NYFOS), which he co-founded in 1988 with Michael Barrett. Since the Festival's inception, he has programmed, performed, translated and annotated more than 140 vocal recitals with repertoire spanning the entire range of American song, art song from Schubert to Szymanowski, and popular song from early vaudeville to Lennon-McCartney. NYFOS has also made in-depth explorations of music from Spain, Latin America, Scandinavia and Russia. New York Magazine gave NYFOS its award for Best Classical Programming, while Opera News proclaimed Blier "the coolest dude in town" and in December 2014, Musical America included him as one of 30 top industry professionals in their feature article, "Profiles in Courage."

Mr. Blier enjoys an eminent career as an accompanist and vocal coach. His recital partners have included Renée Fleming, Cecilia Bartoli, Samuel Ramey, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, Susan Graham, Jessye Norman, and José van Dam, in venues ranging from Carnegie Hall to La Scala. He is also on the faculty of The Juilliard School and has been active in encouraging young recitalists at summer programs, including the Wolf Trap Opera Company, the Steans Institute at Ravinia, Santa Fe Opera, and the San Francisco Opera Center. Many of his former students, including Stephanie Blythe, Joseph Kaiser, Sasha Cooke, Paul Appleby, Dina Kuznetsova, Corinne Winters, Julia Bullock, and Kate Lindsey, have gone on to be valued recital colleagues and sought-after stars on the opera and concert stage. In keeping the traditions of American music alive, he has brought back to the stage many of the rarely heard songs of George Gershwin, Harold Arlen, Kurt Weill and Cole Porter. He has also played ragtime, blues and stride piano evenings with John Musto. A champion of American art song, he has premiered works of John Corigliano, Paul Moravec, Ned Rorem, William Bolcom, Mark Adamo, John Musto, Richard Danielpour, Tobias Picker, Robert Beaser, Lowell Liebermann, Harold Meltzer, and Lee Hoiby, many of which were commissioned by NYFOS.

Mr. Blier's extensive discography includes the premiere recording of Leonard Bernstein's Arias and Barcarolles (Koch International), which won a Grammy Award; Spanish Love Songs (Bridge Records), recorded live at the Caramoor International Music Festival with Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, Joseph Kaiser, and Michael Barrett; the world premiere recording of Bastianello (John Musto) and Lucrezia (William Bolcom), a double bill of one-act comic operas set to librettos by Mark Campbell; and Quiet Please, an album of jazz standards with vocalist Darius de Haas, and Canción amorosa, a CD of Spanish songs with soprano Corinne Winters. His latest release is From Rags to Riches with Stephanie Blythe and William Burden, on NYFOS Records. His writings on opera have been featured in Opera News and the Yale Review. A native New Yorker, he received a Bachelor's Degree with Honors in English Literature at Yale University, where he studied piano with Alexander Farkas. He completed his musical studies in New York with Martin Isepp and Paul Jacobs. Steve is a Yamaha Artist.

Mezzo-soprano Kara Dugan has been praised by The New York Times for her "vocal warmth and rich character." Her versatile career ranges from oratorio to world premieres. Recently, she made her Kennedy Center debut with Michael Tilson Thomas conducting his piece Four Preludes on Playthings of the Wind with the National Symphony Orchestra. Her work with living composers also includes In a New York Minute: Miniatures for Voice and Piano, a newly commissioned song cycle with WQXR comprised of 5 one-minute songs by women composers and poets highlighting some of the joys and challenges faced by New Yorkers during the pandemic. Additional work with living composers includes her debut with the Albany Symphony singing This Land Sings by Michael Daugherty, and performances in the roles of Amadora/Stelladora in John Musto's opera Bastianello for Festival Napa Valley.

A passionate recitalist and chamber musician, she often performs with her husband, pianist Peter Dugan. Last season they were presented by New York Festival of Song, Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Portland Chamber Music Festival, Emerald City Music, and WQXR's Greene Space. They have also been featured performers on PBS Great Performances "Now Hear This," and this fall they will compete in the live rounds of Wigmore Hall's Bollinger International Song Competition. This summer, Ms. Dugan performed on New Hampshire's White Mountains Music Festival's program, Profiles in Courage: Women Composers, with pianist Reiko Uchida.

Recent awards include first prize in the Rochester International Vocal Competition, District Winner of the Metropolitan Opera's Laffont competition, a finalist prize with the James Toland Vocal Arts competition, and in 2021 she was named a member of WQXR's Inaugural Artist Propulsion Lab. Ms. Dugan has sung with the San Francisco Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Buffalo Philharmonic, New World Symphony, Marlboro Music Festival, Ravinia Steans Institute, Boston Early Music Festival, Wolf Trap Opera, Alice Tully Hall, and Aspen Music Festival. She is a graduate of the Juilliard School.

During the 22-23 season, Grammy Award-winning baritone John Brancy makes his role debut as Escamillo in Carmen with MasterVoices at Jazz at Lincoln Center in a newly translated English version by Broadway legend Sheldon Harnick, directed by Sammi Cannold; takes on the role of Franz Wolff-Metternich in the world premiere of La Beauté du monde, by playwright Michel Marc Bouchard and composer Julien Bilodeau, at Opéra de Montréal; and performs as a soloist with Theater Erfurt in conductor/composer Alexander Prior's arrangement of Schubert's Winterreise for orchestra.

The previous 21-22 season, Brancy made his role debut as Guglielmo in two new productions of Mozart's Così fan tutte at San Francisco Opera and San Diego Opera to great critical acclaim. He performed Duruflé Requiem and Joseph Cantaloube songs with the Milwaukee Symphony and Mahler's Songs of the Wayfarer with APEX Ensemble in Montclair, New Jersey. Brancy also released a self-produced collaborative album with Avie Records and Vocal Arts DC, The Journey Home: Live from the Kennedy Center which presented Mr. Brancy and pianist Peter Dugan in a recital program inspired by the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I. The recital was also filmed and aired on the new PBS app AllArts TV. Mr. Brancy also sang and recorded selections from Hanns Eisler's Hollywooder Liederbuch with the Kaleidoscope Chamber Orchestra in Los Angeles as well as joined forces with Tony Award-winning composer Adam Guettel to create a short film titled Medusa as part of his song cycle Myths and Hymns, produced by MasterVoices, which has also featured artists Dove Cameron, Renée Fleming, and Cheyenne Jackson.

Mr. Brancy has collaborated with conductors Lorenzo Viotti, Helmut Rilling, James Gaffigan, Henrik Nanasi, Ken David Masur, Lawrence Renes, Alexander Prior, Klaas Stok, and Alexander Briger. In repertoire that spans from Bach to George Benjamin, he has sung headlining performances with leading orchestras and opera companies in the world, including the LA Phil, San Francisco Symphony, Oper Frankfurt, Radio Filharmonisch Orkest, Boston Symphony, Rundfunkchor Berlin, Glyndebourne Festival Opera, Edmonton Symphony, Pacific Opera Victoria, Kansas City Symphony, Florida Grand Opera, Tucson Symphony Orchestra, Vorarlberger Landestheater, and Opera Omaha, among others. His concert and recital appearances have taken him to the Royal Concertgebouw, Wigmore Hall, Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall, Hugo Wolf Akademie, Alice Tully Hall, Société d'art vocal de Montréal, Carmel Bach Festival, and the Kennedy Center. A native of New Jersey, Mr. Brancy has a B.A. and Graduate Diploma in Vocal Performance from The Juilliard School in New York.

Recipient of the 2018 Leonard Bernstein Award and described by the Boston Globe as one who "plays classical violin with the charisma of a rock star," Juilliard graduate Charles Yang began his violin studies with his mother in Austin, Texas, and has since studied with world-renowned pedagogues Kurt Sassmanshaus, Paul Kantor, Brian Lewis, and Glenn Dicterow. He has performed as a soloist with orchestras and in concert in the United States, Europe, Brazil, Russia, China, and Taiwan, and is the recipient of numerous awards and honors. On June 9th of 2005, the Mayor of Austin presented Mr. Yang with his own "Charles Yang Day". In 2016, Mr. Yang joined the crossover string band, Time for Three.

Not only confined to classical violin, Mr. Yang's improvisational crossover abilities as a violinist, electric violinist, and vocalist have led him to featured performances with a variety of artists in such festivals as The Aspen Music Festival, The Schleswig- Holstein Music Festival, The Ravinia Festival, The Crested Butte Music Festival, The Cayman Arts Festival, The YouTube Music Awards, The Moab Music Festival, TED, Caramoor, The EG Conference, Google Zeitgeist, Interlochen, and onstage at venues such as Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center's Metropolitan Opera House, David H. Koch Theater, Dizzy's and David Rubinstein Atrium; The Long Center, Rudolfinum, The Royal Danish Theatre, Le Poisson Rouge, Highline Ballroom, Ars Nova, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and The Forbidden City in Beijing among many others. He has performed in the presence of two former US Presidents, the Queen of Denmark and has shared the stage in collaborations with artists including Peter Dugan, CDZA, Steve Miller, Jesse Colin Young, Jake Shimabukuro, Ray Benson, Michael Gordon, Marcelo Gomes, Savion Glover, Twyla Tharp, Misty Copeland, and Jon Batiste. Mr. Yang recently made his solo debut with Marin Alsop and The Chicago Symphony at The Ravinia Festival. His career has been followed by various news media including The New York Times, The New York Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Chicago Tribune, The Boston Globe, The Financial Times, The Austin-American Statesman, The Austin Chronicle, and The Strad. Mr. Yang is featured in Nick Romeo's book, Driven, as well as Discovery Channel's Curiosity.

Pianist Peter Dugan's debut performances with Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony were described by the Los Angeles Times as "stunning" and by the SF Chronicle as "fearlessly athletic." He is heard every week across America as the host of National Public Radio's beloved program From the Top. Mr. Dugan has appeared as a soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician across North America and abroad. In 2020, he joined acclaimed violinist Joshua Bell for At Home With Music, a national PBS broadcast and live album release on Sony Classical. This season Mr. Dugan continues his collaboration with Bell, touring internationally with recitals at London's Wigmore Hall, Taipei's National Theater and Concert Hall, and the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC.

Prizing stylistic versatility as the hallmark of a 21st-century musician, Mr. Dugan is equally at home in classical, jazz, and pop idioms, and has collaborated with artists ranging from Jesse Colin Young, to Renee Fleming, to Paquito D'Rivera. Mr. Dugan performs regularly in partnership with friends and artists who share a passion for expanding the world of classical music. The Wall Street Journal described Mr. Dugan's collaboration with violinist and vocalist Charles Yang as a "classical-meets-rockstar duo." In Mr. Dugan's performances with his wife, mezzo-soprano Kara Dugan, repertoire ranges from art song, to American Songbook, to original songs and world premieres. The Dugans have appeared at Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, WQXR's Greene Space, and on PBS Great Performances' Now Hear This.

Mr. Dugan's latest album with baritone John Brancy - The Journey Home: Live from the Kennedy Center - was released on Avie Records in 2021, along with an accompanying documentary film from WNET's AllArts. Brancy and Dugan have given recitals at Alice Tully Hall, Carnegie Hall, and the Kennedy Center, and together won first prize at the 2018 Montreal International Music Competition. Mr. Dugan's latest project with violinist Sean Lee was PaganiniXSchumann, a digital EP release that accompanied a live performance at Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center of all 24 Paganini Caprices with piano parts written by Robert Schumann. Mr. Dugan appeared as the piano soloist in Charles Ives' 4th Symphony with the Houston Symphony, the San Francisco Symphony, and on an album with Michael Tilson Thomas and the SFS.

Mr. Dugan advocates for a classical music culture that is inclusive and welcoming to all, from a community's concert halls and theaters to its schools and hospitals. As a founding creator of Operation Superpower, a superhero opera for children, he has traveled to dozens of schools in the greater New York area, performing for students and encouraging them to use their talents - their superpowers - for good. He is head of the Artist in Residence program at pianoSonoma and a founding faculty member of the Resonance and Soundboard Institutes at Honeywell Arts Academy.

Mr. Dugan holds Bachelor's and Master's degrees from The Juilliard School, where he studied under Matti Raekallio. He resides in New York City and is a Yamaha Artist.