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DAY 4: August 20, 2015 In a short rehearsal period like this, Wednesday is the last day I can really work on the music in a substantive way. After that I can feel the ice forming, and soon everyone turns into Ethel Merman, who described herself before an opening...
DAY 3: August 19, 2015 The process is always the same, but the details make the difference. It's true of producing wine, cheese--and the North Fork residency. To wit: since we're starting a week earlier, the singers are mostly coming directly from their last summer...
DAY 2: August 18, 2015 The first day of rehearsal is always an eye-opener. One person shows up with everything in a tabbed notebook, another has a wad of loose, double-sided, folded Xeroxes. Someone nails one song with emotional depth and convincing Argentinean...
DAY 1: August 17, 2015 There is a lot of drama surrounding the beginning of any project, and today--the official day one of NYFOS@North Fork--is no exception. Three of the singers arrived yesterday. and two of them (Anna Dugan and Alex McKissick) jumped gamely into...
Steven Blier's last pick of the week: I am due to start my work on the Rachmaninoff project soon, and to give my mojo a jump-start I have been working on one of his final songs, “Son” (“Sleep”) from Opus 38. It’s one of those sublime pieces of music that needs to...
(from Steven Blier) I have been listening obsessively to the late American soprano Teresa Stich-Randall this week (as one does). Her name came up during an email interview exchange I was having with writer/critic David Shengold, who casually let it drop that...