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Samuel Barber: The Daisies
I love this popular song because of the simplicity and charm it brings out from the moving eighth notes on both the voice and piano. Sometimes the least pretentious can be most rewarding.
Ravel: Shéhérazade
This three-song set is equivalent to three scenes from an opera. It paints the actions of the text both in reality and in abstraction, but in its most effective way, it depicts an unyielding longing for something unfathomable or unobtainable.
Bernstein: Nachspiel
I was Lenny’s assistant with Michael when we prepared the premiere of this set of eight songs for mezzo-soprano, baritone and piano four-hands. “Nachspiel” is the last one which has no text and all singers (and pianists, and perhaps the audience) humming together. It is so exquisitely written, touching and beautiful.
Edu Lobo & Chico Buarque: Beatriz
Edu Lobo and Chico Buarque are some of Brazil’s most celebrated artists of all-time. I chose this video with my father and me performing this song because every other recording of this amazing tune is so overly produced with heavy arrangements and strings; I just wanted to really savor the complexity of this song by keeping it as simple as possible. And what could be more raw than guitar and voice?
Bob Telson: I’m Calling You
When I first heard this song and saw this movie, I was maybe 10 years old, and lived in the middle of nowhere: a rural part of the third world country Brazil, where culture was really hard to come by. I managed to lay my hands on a pirate copy of this movie and the video looped for days on our newly acquired VHS machine. What a song, what a desert, what a beautiful story. Had I ever heard a voice like that ? NO. It is one of those things I will never forget.
Gino Paoli: Senza Fine
I heard Gino Paoli’s “Senza Fine” for the first time in a TV series in Brazil. It was sung by Italian singer Ornella Vanoni in a very sexy arrangement that I loved back then, but soon started sounding quite dated. Years later, a Brazilian singer named Zizi Possi recorded a beautiful and more timeless version of the tune, mixing in a bossa nova accompaniment, while still masterfully retaining the authenticity of the song.
Jacques Brel: La Valsa a Mille Temps
I went to France several times as a kid and ended up living there at the age of 15, having been introduced to the wonderful music of Jacques Brel. Though not a Parisian himself (Brel was born in Belgium), he contributed much to our idea of what is a “French” sound today. Brel wrote many songs in his short life, and this is one of my favorites, both for its poetry and for his complete mastery over the language. It is unreal what he does closer to the end of the song as it gets faster and faster …
M. Trejo / A. Piazzolla: Los Pájaros perdidos
I love the melodic and harmonic sound world of Piazzolla, which is uniquely his own. This is to me the ultimate recording of this song: it features Italian actress/singer Milva, Astor Piazzolla himself and his incredible band. The way the song builds and builds and builds … is just too powerful for words. It always leaves me wanting more.
Jesse Blumberg
Baritone and Five Boroughs Music Festival co-founder Jesse Blumberg discusses his varied career and dodges our final question. Jesse will return to NYFOS’s Mainstage in Hyphenated-Americans on February 20, 2019 at Merkin Hall.
Brad Garton: April Daffodils
Daffodils, again–bookending the week with everybody’s favorite perennial! This song was a persistent backdrop to my first few months in NYC. Everything in it combines to powerfully suggest the things we can’t communicate: the insistent waves of static harmony, the elusive but urgent text by Pablo Medina (which is here), and the voice, trailing aural phosphenes and finally ebbing away altogether like the impression of light after you close your eyes.
Tori Amos: Yes Anastasia
Tori Amos is a truly captivating performer. Example: I made the mistake of keeping the youtube track running as I was coming up with this intro and quickly forgot how to form words in my brain and type them, as her voice overrode my mental circuits. Amos runs the vocal gamut in Yes Anastasia, which is also quite a compositional feat, positively Schubertian in the cyclical nature of its material.
Guillaume de Machaut: Doulz Viaire Gracieus
Many works by the famed medieval poet-composer Guillaume de Machaut are formes fixes: complex musico-poetic structures requiring skill and finesse to create. This is an example of one such form, a rondeau. I
Laurie Anderson: O Superman
What is it about vocoders? They add a distance to the human voice that, in the skilled hands of Laurie Anderson, renders it omnipotent, supernatural.
Earl Kim: “thither” from Now and Then
The underrated Earl Kim’s setting of Samuel Beckett’s “thither” occurs twice in Now and Then, Kim’s 1981 song cycle for soprano, flute, viola, and harp. At just over 30 seconds, “thither” the song is a haunting shiver, a ghost aria, unforgettable even without the reprise.
Maurice Ravel: Asie
When I think of of exquisite writing for the voice and absolute masterful orchestration, I always think of this piece. For me this is the way to write for voice and orchestra. Absolute care about the registers, and the way Ravel keeps the balances has not been surpassed. On top of that, the gorgeous melodies and harmonies…