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Friday’s always a tricky day in these week-long residencies. I want to keep moving the artistic process forward, while simultaneously instilling confidence and protecting the singers’ vocal resources. It’s not a great idea to exhaust them 48 hours before the show. ...
As Stephen Sondheim wrote— “Bit by bit, putting it together.” This means patting every song into place, changing the running order (just in time to meet the print deadline), and, inevitably, a raft of Last-Minute Transpositions. Today we decided to take yet another...
Wednesday is always the day of grace. The performance still feels pleasantly far off, so we’re able to keep performance anxiety at bay. Sure, the cast is concerned about memorization, I am concerned about the places where my hands are not cooperating. But these remain...
This year’s program is called “Gracias a la vida: Songs of Latin America,” chosen to show off the gifts of my two Spanish-speaking singers, César Parreño and Shelén Hughes. But our concert also includes three Brazilian songs in Portuguese, and we’d need a language...
Since the pandemic I have come to place a high value on two contradictory things; my alone time, and my musical communion with colleagues. The annual NYFOS@North Fork concert comes at the end of August, just when my need for alone time is at its most intense. I yearn...
Like many pianists in my field, I’ve had the Anthology of Art Songs by Black American Composers on my shelf for decades. NYFOS has made good use of it over the years, often programming those concert pieces alongside popular songs by Eubie Blake and Fats Waller. It was...