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Most people assume that all performers want to hog the spotlight, and that singers in particular care about nothing but their solo moments. After all, what other musicians warm up by braying, "me, me, me, ME, me, me, me" at the top of their lungs? Yet what we have...
For three decades, it has been NYFOS’ pleasure and honor to throw musical birthday parties for Ned Rorem. Our first was for his 70th, which brought in the largest audience we ever had at our home at the Greenwich House Music School. Five years later, we commissioned...
We’ve had a bit of drama over the past few days. Trevor Haumschilt, the baritone in the cast, had been belting out his songs like a champ, seemingly tireless day after day. He’s a very tall guy, with a football player’s build, and he looks indestructible. Imagine my...
I am always looking for the element that will lift a song from the memorized-and-well-executed to the owned-and-embodied. There are many ways to board that magic carpet, assuming the singers have the capacity for levitation. (Everyone in this cast does.) But it isn’t...
I have had a lot of good times doing my annual Juilliard concerts, a tradition since 2006. But I had not anticipated how much fun I would have with this year’s show, Ned at 100: A Rorem Celebration. It is a revamped revival of a concert we did ten years ago,...
Four decades ago I found myself at a week-long residency on the Princeton campus, studying song repertoire with a roster of legendary recitalists. At one of those master classes I heard my first Argentinean art song—“La rosa y el sauce,” by Carlos Guastavino. After...