Sammy Fain/Irving Kahal: I’ll Be Seeing You

Written by Kate Bullock

Writer, performer, and administrator

In category: Song of the Day

Published May 8, 2020

And just like that, we’ve reached the end of this musical pilgrimage. This has been a criminal amount of fun for me and I am so grateful for anyone that stuck around to indulge me throughout. It seems only fitting that I might dedicate this last day to the very creative home that brought us all here to this little blog today – to our dearest NYFOS. 

When I encountered NYFOS for the first time, I was a brand new implant in the City after having graduated from the Crane School of Music in Potsdam, NY. I was working with the lauded artist manager, Bill Palant, as he began to build his new company and was not unsurprisingly starstruck by every aspect of my new New York life. One fall night found me walking the one block over after work to watch the Schubert/Beatles program at Merken. That night informed so much of what I would come to expect from my city and all of my micro-communities within. It was a place where the responsibility of art and the depth and power for it to intrinsically link people, both past and present, in beauty and humanity was on full display. It was, in essence, coming home to my people. 

The first thing that I fell in love with was the program notes. What fresh heaven was I in that the program was comprised of equal parts incredible wit AND historical, musicological, and anecdotal context? (If you’ve joined us at a performance you know, that program is a spiritual journey as much as it is anything else.) The next thing that I fell in love with was everything else. The first time that I heard Steve Blier speak extemporaneously about music during a performance, I was transfixed. I will probably never know a person more capable of silencing a room so that everyone can listen intently to every word to pass through their lips as capably as he does. Every aspect of my first evening at NYFOS showed me what community in an arts organization looked like. What steadfast commitment to artistry and intelligence and progressive programming looks like when company trusts audience to meet them where they are, and audience trusts company to challenge and enlighten them in all the best ways. It truly is a perfect relationship.

With all that said, we are now all apart together. It has been sad to see dates come and go on the calendar where I had jotted down performances to look forward to and easy to despair of the fact that it might still be a while yet before we might all be truly together. Nevertheless, I endure it knowing that on the other end, sometime in the not too distant future, is a brilliantly curated concert that is probably being dreamt up as I type, and another night among friends. So dear friend, if I might call you that, in the meantime, “I’ll be looking at the moon, but I’ll be seeing you…”

I’ll be seeing you
In all the old familiar places
That this heart of mine embraces
All day and through
In that small cafe
The park across the way
The children’s carousel
The chestnut trees
The wishing well

I’ll be seeing you
In every lovely summer’s day
In everything that’s light and gay
I’ll always think of you that way

I’ll find you in the morning sun
And when the night is new
I’ll be looking at the moon
But I’ll be seeing you

I’ll be seeing you
In every lovely summer’s day
In everything that’s light and gay
I’ll always think of you that way

I’ll find you in the morning sun
And when the night is new
I’ll be looking at the moon
But I’ll be seeing you

author: Kate Bullock

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Kate Bullock is a writer, performer, and administrator based in New York City. She holds a Bachelor’s from the Crane School of Music where she studied Music Business and Vocal Performance. During her tenure in New York, she has worked in support of the New York Festival of Song, Kurt Weill Foundation, Étude Arts, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Carnegie Hall, and serves as the concert artist liaison at Saint Thomas Church Fifth Avenue, in addition to her singing with Trinity Wall Street.

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