New York Festival Of Song Announces 21st Season

New York Festival Of Song (NYFOS, www.nyfos.org), co-founded and directed by pianists Steven Blier and Michael Barrett, who "reinvented the song recital during the 1990's with daring and dramatic programming" (The New Yorker), announces its 21st season (2008-2009).  
 
The company's New York City concerts begin on September 23 at the newly renovated Merkin Concert Hall at Kaufman Center, with A Bernstein / Bolcom Celebration. The concert pays tribute to two of NYFOS's guiding lights, Leonard Bernstein and William Bolcom; Bolcom and his wife, mezzo-soprano Joan Morris, will cap the evening with a selection of songs from their vast repertoire. The program also celebrates the ninetieth birthday of NYFOS's Founding Advisor, Leonard Bernstein, who bestowed the American premiere of his last work, Arias and Barcarolles, to the newly-formed company. Their subsequent recording of the work in 1989, with Judy Kaye and William Sharp, earned the composer a posthumous Grammy Award for Best New Composition.
 
Curtain time for all concerts is 8 PM.  Single ticket prices are $40 to $55, with half-priced student tickets (as available) a half hour before curtain, and a limited amount of $15 student tickets available by calling NYFOS at (646) 230-8380.  Merkin Concert Hall at Kaufman Center is at 129 West 67th Street, New York, NY 10023. Subscriptions are available by writing to the box office at Merkin Concert Hall at Kaufman Center, or by calling (212) 501-3330, or online at www.kaufman-center.org. Free tickets for the January 14 concert at Juilliard will be available at The Juilliard School's box office beginning January 5.
 

Tuesday and Thursday, SEPTEMBER 23 & 25, 2008
Merkin Concert Hall
"A Bernstein / Bolcom Celebration"
A tribute to two of New York Festival of Song's guiding lights, Leonard Bernstein and William Bolcom, quintessential American composers and great spirits who have long provided wisdom, guidance, and music to NYFOS. Songs from Bernstein's Peter Pan, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Songfest, Wonderful Town, On the Town, Arias and Barcarolles; Bolcom's Cabaret Songs, I Will Breathe a Mountain, Briefly It Enters, McTeague; and a special appearance by Joan Morris and William Bolcom, who will share signature songs from their repertoire.
Artists: Sari Gruber, soprano; Rebecca Jo Loeb, mezzo-soprano; Joan Morris, mezzo-soprano; Renée Tatum, mezzo-soprano; Alex Mansoori, tenor; William Sharp, baritone; Marc Webster, bass; William Bolcom, Steven Blier and Michael Barrett, piano
 
 
Tuesday and Thursday, NOVEMBER 18 & 20, 2008
Merkin Concert Hall
"Fugitives"
An evening of songs from the concert stage, the movies, Broadway, and Berlin's cabarets that trace the varied fortunes of the gifted composers who fled destruction during Hitler's rise to power--some to begin new lives and brilliant careers abroad, others to meet with darker fates. Music by Kurt Weill, Franz Schreker, Arnold Zemlinsky, Kurt Tucholsky, Erich Korngold, Hanns Eisler, Friedrich Hollaender, Emmerich Kálmán, and many others.
Artists: Kate Lindsey, mezzo-soprano; Joseph Kaiser, tenor; Steven Blier, piano
 
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 14, 2009
Peter Jay Sharp Auditorium at The Juilliard School
"Latin Lovers: An Evening of Cuban and South American Song," the fourth annual NYFOS@Juilliard concert.
Songs by Guastavino, Astor Piazzolla, Carlos López-Buchardo, Heitor Villa-Lobos, Ernesto Lecuona, and many others.
 
Tuesday and Thursday, FEBRUARY 10 & 12, 2009
Merkin Concert Hall
"Voices of the Jewish Diaspora"
Songs in many languages celebrate the culturally diverse Jewish communities that flourished as the tribes of Israel spread out across the globe.  Sephardic melodies arranged by Alberto Hemsi and Roberto Sierra; Second Avenue specialties by Irving Berlin and Joseph Rumshinsky; art songs by Ravel, Milhaud, and Rubinstein; plus music by Gershwin and Bernstein.
Artists: Dina Kuznetsova, soprano; Rinat Shaham, mezzo-soprano; Steven Goldstein, tenor; Steven Blier and Michael Barrett, piano
 
Tuesday, MARCH 17, 2009
Merkin Hall
"Songs of the Irish Poets"
The lyricism of the Emerald Isle's greatest writers, including Thomas Moore, W.B. Yeats, James Joyce, and Paul Muldoon, as set to music by Beethoven, Britten, Balfe, Barber and others; with a group of traditional Irish songs featuring the fiddle playing of Paul Woodiel.
Artists: Paul Appleby, tenor; other members of Caramoor's Terrence W. Schwab Vocal Rising Stars Program; Steven Blier and Michael Barrett, piano
 
TUESDAY, APRIL 14, 2009
Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall
Spring Gala
Program TBA
 
Tuesday and Thursday, MAY 19 & 21, 2009
Merkin Concert Hall
"The Welcome Shore"
A hymn to rivers and oceans stirs the heart and the imagination as the summer season draws near.  Music by Elgar (the magnificent Sea Pictures), Fauré, Guastavino, Rachmaninoff, Brahms, Noël Coward, Pauline Viardot, and many others.
Artists: Michelle Areyzaga, soprano; Sasha Cooke, mezzo-soprano; Philip Cutlip, baritone; Steven Blier and Michael Barrett, piano
 
New York Festival of Song was founded in 1988 by Steven Blier and Michael Barrett.  NYFOS is dedicated to creating intimate song concerts of great beauty, humor and originality, combining music, poetry, and history to entertain, educate and create community among audiences and performers. With a far-ranging repertoire of art songs, concert works and theater pieces, its thematic recitals have included programs from Brahms to the Beatles, from the nineteenth-century salons of Paris to Tin Pan Alley, from Russian art song to Argentine tangos, from sixteenth-century lute songs to new music.  NYFOS particularly celebrates American song literature and culture, and specializes in premiering and commissioning new American works. They have produced five recordings on the Koch label, including a Grammy Award-winning disc of Bernstein's Arias and Barcarolles, as well as the Grammy-nominated recording of Ned Rorem's Evidence of Things Not Seen on New World Records, and the Bridge Records release of the NYFOS program Spanish Love Songs. NYFOS's concert series, touring programs, radio broadcasts, recordings, and educational activities have inspired a new interest in the creative possibilities of the song program, and have inspired the creation of thematic vocal series around the world.
 
Artistic Director Steven Blier has programmed, performed, translated and annotated over 100 song programs with repertoire spanning the entire range of American song, art song from Schubert to Szymanowski, and popular song from early vaudeville to Lennon-McCartney.  In addition, Mr. Blier enjoys an eminent career as an accompanist and vocal coach. Among the many artists he has partnered in recital are Renée Fleming, Cecilia Bartoli, Samuel Ramey, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, Susan Graham and Frederica von Stade. Associate Artistic Director Michael Barrett is also the CEO of Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts, and General Director of the Caramoor International Music Festival. In 1992 Mr. Barrett and his wife Leslie Tomkins founded The Moab Music Festival in Utah, for which he serves as music director. He has conducted major orchestras here and abroad in the symphonic, operatic, and dance repertoire, and is the former director of the Tisch Center for the Arts at the 92nd Street Y.  Mr. Barrett has conducted and played premieres by Bernstein, Blitzstein, Bolcom, Kernis, Sellars, Harrison, Takemitsu, Del Tredici and John Corigliano.
 
NYFOS's New York City concert series is funded, in part, by the City of New York Department of Cultural Affairs and New York State Council on the Arts.

To post a comment, you must register and login.