In the film version of On the Town, NYFOS friends Betty Comden and Adolph Green have the somewhat uptight Ann Miller character lead the gang of on-leave sailors into the Museum of Natural History, where she gets very turned on by the primitive man exhibit. The...
written by
Jack Snyder
Romberg: The Riff Song; Szymanowski: Songs of an Infatuated Muezzin
My dad had a terrific singing voice, appearing as a young man in “light operas” such as the 1926 musical The Desert Song, an entertainingly orientalizing show about dashing Moroccan Berber rebels on horseback and their sexy womenfolk who performed the dance of the...
Leonard Bernstein: Something’s Coming
Last night Steven Blier led off the Bernstein concert with “Something’s Coming,” the quintessential expression of the blindly hopeful anticipation of youth from West Side Story. I wanted to pick this song even before knowing that it would be on Steve’s playlist....
Bernstein discusses and conducts Stravinsky’s “Oedipus Rex”
It’s hard to think of a more iconic work of western (and New York) civilization than Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex. Among other impacts, it spawned Freudian psychology, which for a time reigned nearly hegemonic on the isle of Manhattan, and no doubt provided the conceptual...
Leonard Bernstein: Glitter and Be Gay
NYFOS begins its fall season tomorrow with an evening devoted to the music of Leonard Bernstein, who worked with Steve Blier and Michael Barrett in founding their inimitable art song enterprise. One of the many perks of being a NYFOS board member is being invited to...