New York Festival of Song Announces 2024-25 Programming
Aug 24, 2024 to Apr 09, 2025
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New York Festival of Song (NYFOS), led by Artistic Director Steven Blier, has announced its 2024-25 season of performances, including four Mainstage Series programs at Merkin Hall, co-presented with Kaufman Music Center. The season also includes residencies in Orient, NY and at The Juilliard School, the NYFOS Next Festival at the Rubin Museum of Art, and the return of NYFOS’s fan-favorite holiday program, A Goyishe Christmas To You!
"Each concert this season offers the kind of cultural richness that has marked our performances for the last four decades,” said NYFOS Artistic Director, Steven Blier. “One of our oldest mottos was, ‘No two alike!,’ and that guideline is at its peak this season. The range of music, the charisma of the performers, and the exploration of beauty in all its variety will make for a potent season of song. We can’t wait to share it all with you!”
NYFOS kicks off its Mainstage season at Merkin Hall at Kaufman Music Center on Tuesday, November 19, 2024 at 8:00 p.m. with My Brother’s Keeper. Conceived by baritone Justin Austin, this program tells a story of brotherly love, caretaking, and community among Black men in America through art song, soul, gospel, and opera. My Brother’s Keeper features a stellar team of Black American male singers, including Austin, tenor Joshua Blue, baritone Will Liverman, bass-baritone Joseph Parrish, baritone Jorell Williams, and tenor Chaz'men Williams-Ali, alongside NYFOS's own Steven Blier.
The concert arose from a vivid dream Justin Austin had last fall in which he saw himself onstage with his four colleagues alongside his longtime mentor Steven Blier. “It was a NYFOS concert,” Austin said to Blier, “I just had to call you–I know it’s crazy, but…” “We’re doing it,” replied Blier instantly. Miraculously, there was one week when all six busy singers could make themselves available. Since many of them are also accomplished pianists and composers, “the Steinway will get a real workout that night,” Blier said.
The Mainstage season continues on Wednesday, February 26, 2025 at 8:00 p.m. with Le tour de France, a musical voyage to the four corners of France including a deluxe stay in Paris. The program includes songs by Francis Poulenc, Joseph Canteloube, André Caplet, Gustav Mahler, Michel Legrand, Charles Trénet, and others, featuring the superb vocal talent of soprano Nicoletta Berry, mezzo-soprano Erin Wagner, tenor Daniel McGrew, and baritone Samuel Kidd, with pianists Steven Blier and Bénédicte Jourdois.
On Thursday, March 20, 2025 at 8:00 p.m. NYFOS offers Beginner's Luck: The Artist’s Journey, highlighting the brilliant young talents of Caramoor's 2025 Schwab Vocal Rising Stars program. A wide-ranging playlist, from German Lieder to Bob Dylan, explores that chaotic decade between adolescence and adulthood, filled with seemingly endless possibility and endless peril. A cast of five brilliant young artists, all in their 20s, will join co-directors Bénédicte Jourdois and Blier in this intriguing musical journey.
NYFOS concludes its Mainstage season at Merkin Hall with Other Worlds: Songs of Fantasy on Wednesday, April 9, 2025 at 8:00 p.m. as mezzo-soprano Kara Dugan, baritone John Brancy, Grammy Award-winning clarinetist Mark Dover in his NYFOS debut, and pianist Peter Dugan join NYFOS's Steven Blier for a new program of songs that explore all that lurks in the depths of the forest, the ocean, and the skies with songs by Schumann, Spohr, Sibelius, and many others.
NYFOS continues to release albums and singles throughout the season on its in-house label, NYFOS Records. Their newest CD, Schubert/Beatles, based on an adventurous 2016 NYFOS program, will drop in September 2024; the cast includes baritone Theo Hoffman, soprano Julia Bullock, and pianists Kunal Lahiri and Steven Blier. Later in the season, the label will release Road Trip, a journey across America in song with an all-star cast including sopranos Ying Fang, Kelli O’Hara, and Julia Bullock, mezzo-sopranos Susan Graham, Joyce di Donato, Kate Lindsey, and Sasha Cooke, baritenor Michael Spyres, baritones Justin Austin, John Brancy, and Will Liverman, and bass-baritone Christian van Horn with Blier at the piano. These new recordings follow in the wake of The Singles, Vol. 1 (2024), a collection of treasured performances spanning over 20 years of NYFOS’s history; and Mi país: Songs of Argentina (2023) a dive into the spellbinding delicacy of Argentina’s art songs and tangos with bass-baritone Federico De Michelis and Steven Blier. Both albums received rave reviews and thousands of streams online.
Additional performances include:
–A weeklong residency in Orient, NY from August 19-25 with a concert titled Happily Ever After: A Modern Person’s Guide to Operetta on Sunday, August 25, 2024 at 3:00 p.m. at Poquatuck Hall. For decades, operetta charmed audiences across the globe with the promise of happy endings and the allure of sweet melodies. Its perfume is still potent - and surprisingly varied, from the wit of Gilbert and Sullivan, to the opulence of Lehár, to the grit of masters like Sondheim, Kurt Weill, and Astor Piazzolla. Happily Ever After is not just a feast for the ears but also a bracing exploration of popular culture from eight countries. Sung by a brilliant cast of artists featuring baritone Philip Stoddard, tenor Scott Rubén La Marca, and soprano Adriana Stepien, the show reunites Steven Blier with one of his favorite collaborators, the stage director Katherine M. Carter.
–NYFOS’s series for new song, the NYFOS Next Festival at the Rubin Museum of Art with concerts on Sunday, September 29, 2024 at 3:00 p.m. and Sunday, November 3, 2024 at 3:00 p.m., curated by Nathaniel LaNasa.
–The return of NYFOS’s fan-favorite holiday show A Goyishe Christmas To You! on Tuesday, December 17, 2024 at 7:00 p.m. at Congregation Beit Simchat Torah. The annual holiday tradition features soprano Lauren Worsham, mezzo-sopranos Donna Breitzer and Rebecca Jo Loeb, tenor Alex Mansoori, Cantor Joshua Breitzer, and baritone Joshua Jeremiah, with Alan R. Kay on clarinet and Steven Blier as pianist and host.
–The annual NYFOS@Juilliard concert on Wednesday, January 15, 2025 at 7:30 p.m. in the Peter Jay Sharp Theater.
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.
The NYFOS Mainstage and the NYFOS Next series are supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.
Author: New York Festival of Song
Manhattan
Special Events
New York, NY
All events and times are subject to change.
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