by Steven Blier | Mar 17, 2019 | Blier's Blog
I’m rarely cheerful the day before a show. I wish I had a bit of Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s infectious, nitrous oxide enthusiasm to lift everyone’s morale—especially mine. But I always feel as if I am being led in front of a firing squad, and I seem to give birth to...
by Steven Blier | Mar 16, 2019 | Blier's Blog
My goals today were simple and clear: to get the second half of the show staged, and to see if I could persuade my hands to stop behaving like bouncers at a second-rate strip club. I took a little time by myself at the piano in the morning to deal with item number 2....
by Steven Blier | Mar 15, 2019 | Blier's Blog
Today we went into uncharted territory when our director, Stephen Barker Turner, reported for work. I hired him sight unseen on the recommendation of two other directors I’d invited. They had to back out of the gig because of some late-breaking auditions and film...
by Steven Blier | Mar 14, 2019 | Blier's Blog
Yesterday was a trip to the moon on gossamer wings. But today I could see why Wednesday is known as “hump day.” I tried very hard to conceal my fatigue from everyone (including myself), with the clear intention of replicating the buoyancy of Tuesday’s session....
by Steven Blier | Mar 13, 2019 | Blier's Blog
One of the luxuries of the Vocal Rising Stars program is that I am encouraged to invite guest teachers in to work with the cast. But it wasn’t easy to locate the right people for this crazy multilingual program. In fact, I wasn’t even sure what I needed—should it be...
by Steven Blier | Mar 12, 2019 | Blier's Blog
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...
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