written by
When I first did “The Art of Pleasure” at Wolf Trap I shared piano duties with a man I treasure, both as a musical partner and friend—Joseph Li. He’s an almost intimidatingly beautiful artist, versatile and virtuosic. In Orient, alas, I am going it alone, which makes...
Wednesday is pretty much the last day I can work intimately with each singer. From here on in, we need to put a show together, bash away at memorization, and fit each song into the longer arc of the program. So I scheduled a bunch of individual sessions to talk...
My NYFOS residencies are intense, but they’re also short—just a week long. We have a practical task in front of us: getting an intricate concert on its feet, memorized, staged as necessary, and absorbed artistically. But I also want to give something new to the very...
Today was the much-anticipated first day of NYFOS@North Fork, our sixth annual project in Orient, NY. The town is at the very east end of Long Island’s north fork (hence the name). If you kept going, the next piece of land you’d see would be….Europe. Our concert has...
Today is the day—Song of the Day turns 3! Here’s a look back at our first week of songs from NYFOS’s artistic director Steven Blier. I have three summer concerts to give, and I’ve just started to think about the last of them: NYFOS@North Fork, Latin Lovers (August...
Song of the Day turns 3 this week! Here’s a look back at our first week of songs (beginning June 15, 2015) from NYFOS’s artistic director Steven Blier. The first professional singer I ever accompanied was English soprano Valerie Masterson. I met her through Matthew...