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This is our tenth anniversary at Caramoor—which means it’s my eleventh season as Artistic Director of the Vocal Rising Stars Program. I look forward to these residencies with a mixture of anticipation and fear. The work is intense, and the week’s success depends a lot...
After all that work and all my crazy anxiety, I am happy to report that the show went quite brilliantly on Thursday. The place was packed. The cast was on fire—seven vibrant personalities, set free in a way you don’t always see at my school. Mary Birnbaum’s staging...
Dress rehearsal. This is usually when I have my worst day at the piano, when every ounce of grace and fluidity is replaced by gristly tendons and a rotating display of tiny memory slips. Imagine a light case of arthritis accompanied by a series of mini-strokes—that is...
We had our first day in the hall today. This move is less disconcerting these days than it was when we started NYFOS@Juilliard in 2006. Going from a small room—in those days, my apartment—to the 1000-seat Peter J. Sharp Theater used to feel like a Great Disappearing...
Choosing a program for NYFOS’s annual residency at Juilliard is usually one of the year’s sweetest dilemmas. No dilemma this time, though. I knew more than a year ago that I would want to revive Kurt Weill’s Berlin as the 2019 project. My singers have strong feelings...
Last Tuesday I was ready to rehearse Kurt Weill’s Berlin, and I am now ready to play the show on Thursday. But I was not ready for how deep it was going to cut. My soul has gotten a workout this week, in a wonderful way. I guess it all began with my gradual awareness...