NYFOS Next Series Presents THE MUSIC OF JOHN MUSTO, 3/4
By: BWW News Desk Jan. 30, 2014
New York Festival of Song celebrates one of its oldest and closest friends with a special evening on its forward-looking NYFOS Next series: The Music of John Musto on Tuesday, March 4, 2014, at 7:30pm at Opera America's National Opera Center.
NYFOS and John Musto trace their history back to the first concert ever presented by NYFOS in 1988, which featured his sophisticated and accessible songs ("unhinged tonal harmonies along with brilliantly conceived counterpoint," in the words of The Washington Post). Since then, NYFOS has presented numerous premieres of Musto's work, including his opera Bastianello, which was commissioned by NYFOS to celebrate its twelfth anniversary.
Musto is known particularly for his eclectic compositional influences, including jazz, popular song and musical theater, and for his pianistic authority and panache. This concert will feature Musto on piano along with soprano Amy Burton, tenor Vale Rideout, baritone William Sharp, guitarist David Starobin, and cellist Edward Arron. The program will include the New York premieres of three song cycles: The Brief Light, Scottish Songs, and River Songs.
Musto's distinctive voice shines in chamber music and works for piano, as well as in his songs and operas. Four of his operas have been produced in the last decade; The Washington Post hailed Volpone as a "masterpiece" for its "brilliant marriage of words and music."
In 2013, he released an album John Musto: Piano Concertos (Bridge Records), featuring the composer performing both of his major piano and orchestral works. The International Record Review wrote: "These are bold, proud, unapologetically expressive concertos that, judging from Musto's playing of their solo parts, were unquestionably written by a card-carrying pianist of significant gifts."
This concert continues the 2013-14 installment of the NYFOS Next series, which spotlights today's composers, lyricists and interpreters of modern song. The series finds a new home this season in the recital hall at Opera America's National Opera Center, a newly designed state-of-the-art facility ideally suited to NYFOS Next's intimate and relaxed atmosphere.
Tickets for NYFOS Next are free,
though seating is limited and reservations are required.
To reserve tickets please contact (646) 230-8380 or info@nyfos.net.
though seating is limited and reservations are required.
To reserve tickets please contact (646) 230-8380 or info@nyfos.net.
NYFOS Next looks to the future, opening a forum for the next generation of song composers and interpreters. Now in its fourth season, this "invaluable contemporary-music series" (The New Yorker) takes the longstanding NYFOS tradition of presenting new work, and puts it in the hands of the composers themselves. Each composer becomes a curator, building a program that features his/her own works and those of favorite colleagues and students. The composer also acts as host of the evening. This approach has allowed NYFOS to expand the perspectives of its two Artistic Directors, creating room for multifarious approaches to vocal music.
NYFOS Next has featured programs in front of enthusiastic full houses, curated by a wide range of established and emerging artists including Gabriel Kahane, Joseph Thalken, Phil Kline, Carla Kilhstedt, Mohammed Fairouz, Kevin Puts, and Russell Platt.
Held in intimate venues with a relaxed atmosphere, this year the series finds a home in the newly designed state-of-the-art recital hall at OPERA America's National Opera Center. Hour-long shows will be curated by composing greats Mark Adamo, John Musto and Harold Meltzer.
NYFOS Next has featured programs in front of enthusiastic full houses, curated by a wide range of established and emerging artists including Gabriel Kahane, Joseph Thalken, Phil Kline, Carla Kilhstedt, Mohammed Fairouz, Kevin Puts, and Russell Platt.
Held in intimate venues with a relaxed atmosphere, this year the series finds a home in the newly designed state-of-the-art recital hall at OPERA America's National Opera Center. Hour-long shows will be curated by composing greats Mark Adamo, John Musto and Harold Meltzer.
About John Musto
In recent years, John Musto has been praised as one of America's great musical talents. Musto's operas, chamber music, and prolific catalog of songs and song cycles have been performed and recorded by a plethora of leading artists. His interpretations of his own music and that of other composers are rivaled by his extraordinary gifts as an improviser.
Since 2004, he has seen the production of four new operas, all with libretti by Mark Campbell. The first, Volpone, was commissioned and presented by Wolf Trap Opera in 2004, and again in a new production in 2007.The recording of this production was nominated for a 2010 Grammy award. In November of 2007, the genial drama Later the Same Evening was given at the National Gallery of Art in Washington and the University of Maryland Opera Theater, the co-commissioners of the work. That enthusiastically received, innovative opera had its New York premiere in December 2008 at the Manhattan School of Music. The recording of this production is available on Albany records. Later the Same Evening had its third production at Glimmerglass Festival in July 2011.Bastianello (paired with William Bolcom's Lucrezia) was commissioned to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the New York Festival of Song, presented in three New York performances and in a second production in the summer of 2008 at the Moab Music Festival in Utah. A recording of Bastianello/Lucrezia is available on Bridge records.
The most recent, The Inspector, had its premiere at Wolf Trap Opera in April 2011, and was presented at Boston Lyric Opera in April of 2012. The recording of The Inspector has just been released on Wolf Trap records.Mr. Musto has just released a recording on Bridge records of both his piano concerti. He performed with conductors Glen Cortese and the Greeley Philharmonic in Colorado, and Scott Yoo and the Odense Symphony Orchestra in Denmark.One recently issued recording entirely devoted to instrumental music by John Musto is a revelatory chamber-music release from the Copland House. Musto'sImprovisation and Fugue for piano was featured in June 2008 at the fourth New York Piano Competition, which commissioned it. It then was the piece played by the 2009 Van Cliburn International Competition Gold Medalist Nobuyuki Tsujii when he carried off the prize for best performance of a modern work. That work is also available on recording-in Nobuyuki Tsujii's prize-winning performance on a Harmonia Mundi disc.
The Brief Light, six songs for baritone and guitar, was premiered and released on Bridge Records by baritone Patrick Mason and guitarist David Starobin. In May of 2011, Musto's transcription of his 2003 Passacaglia for orchestra was premiered by the two-piano team Split Second (Roberto Hidalgo and Marc Peloquin) at the Look and Listen festival in New York.John Musto earned degrees in piano performance at the Manhattan School of Music under Seymour Lipkin. (In October 2011, he was honored with a Distinguished Alumnus Award.) He also pursued studies with pianist Paul Jacobs. He has been composer-in-residence at the Mannes College of Music, a visiting professor at Brooklyn College, and is a frequent guest lecturer at the Juilliard School and the Manhattan School of Music. As a pianist, Musto has recorded for Bridge, Harmonia Mundi, Nonesuch, The Milken Archive, Naxos,Harbinger, CRI and EMI, and his compositions have been recorded for Hyperion, Harmonia Mundi, MusicMasters, Innova, Channel Classics, Albany Records and New World Records.
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