by nyfos | Feb 19, 2019 | Program Notes
In late 2017, Michael and I were busy trying to finalize the 2018–2019 NYFOS season. We had settled on the W. C. Handy project, and we were thinking about celebrating a famous poet on a later evening. (That poet turned out to be García Lorca, featured in our April 24...
by Bright Sheng | Feb 11, 2019 | Song of the Day
I was Lenny’s assistant with Michael when we prepared the premiere of this set of eight songs for mezzo-soprano, baritone and piano four-hands. “Nachspiel” is the last one which has no text and all singers (and pianists, and perhaps the audience) humming...
by nyfos | Dec 12, 2018 | Song of the Day
NYFOS offers a week of cold-weather songs as we settle into the winter season. From NYFOS’s recording Unquiet Peace: The Lied Between the Wars, Cyndia Sieden sings “Schlechtes Wetter” by Richard Strauss with Steven Blier at the...
by Steven Blier | Nov 11, 2018 | Program Notes
For many years, Michael Barrett and I discussed doing a program devoted to the blues, that quintessential American genre. But we were never sure how to tackle such a broad topic. Then our friend, the musicologist and early blues scholar Elliott Hurwitt proposed that...
by Steven Blier | Oct 26, 2018 | Song of the Day
A student and I were talking about the operas we’d heard in recent months, as we often do at the beginning of a session. It was a slightly depressing discussion, and one I’ve had several times recently in my studio during a period when there has been a lot of alarming...
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