by Steven Blier | Aug 26, 2022 | Blier's Blog
As Stephen Sondheim wrote— “Bit by bit, putting it together.” This means patting every song into place, changing the running order (just in time to meet the print deadline), and, inevitably, a raft of Last-Minute Transpositions. Today we decided to take yet another...
by Steven Blier | Aug 25, 2022 | Blier's Blog
Wednesday is always the day of grace. The performance still feels pleasantly far off, so we’re able to keep performance anxiety at bay. Sure, the cast is concerned about memorization, I am concerned about the places where my hands are not cooperating. But these remain...
by Steven Blier | Aug 24, 2022 | Blier's Blog
This year’s program is called “Gracias a la vida: Songs of Latin America,” chosen to show off the gifts of my two Spanish-speaking singers, César Parreño and Shelén Hughes. But our concert also includes three Brazilian songs in Portuguese, and we’d need a language...
by Steven Blier | Aug 23, 2022 | Blier's Blog
Since the pandemic I have come to place a high value on two contradictory things; my alone time, and my musical communion with colleagues. The annual NYFOS@North Fork concert comes at the end of August, just when my need for alone time is at its most intense. I yearn...
by Steven Blier | Mar 15, 2022 | Blier's Blog
I had a remarkable moment onstage yesterday. I have not, in truth, loved performing very much in recent months, for reasons too complicated and perhaps too unknown for me to explain. But yesterday at Caramoor, I felt the magic of musical communion with an audience...
by Steven Blier | Mar 14, 2022 | Blier's Blog
We had to move our dress rehearsal from Caramoor to my house. The weather was predicted to be bad—yesterday we already saw signs on the highway asking us to stay off the roads during the storm. We woke up to find that they had been right. It was a very nasty day, with...
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