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NYFOS@Juilliard: Day 4
It was a day of highs and lows. Some songs flourished in amazing new directions under the guidance of Mary Birnbaum. As I’ve written earlier in the week, I have had to adjust to seeing stand-and-sing songs I’ve done for years turn into mini-scenes that pull in several non-singing performers. Mostly it’s a revelation, once I let go of my preconceptions.
NYFOS@Juilliard: Day 3
Today I invited my friend Jack Viertel to come watch some of our rehearsal. Jack comes from the highest reaches of the theater world. He’s written a masterful book called The Secret Life of the Broadway Musical (a must-read for anyone who loves American musical theater); he is the Artistic Director of the Encores! Series at City Center; he is Senior Vice-President at Jujamcyn Theaters; and he’s taught at NYU. It would seem a bit scary to invite such a person to give notes to the cast, especially after only a few days of rehearsal. But Jack is one of the greatest mensches in the business—indeed, in our entire city. And he’s a close friend—hell, he was the toastmaster at my wedding. I kept anxiety at bay.
NYFOS@Juilliard: Day 2
There is a certain thrill—and a certain terror—to watching a beloved song...
NYFOS@Juilliard: Day 1
We had our first run of the whole program today, and it went extremely well. There were plenty of heart-stopping moments where we all felt the sacred fire in the room. And the program has a strong arc, just as I remembered. But I wasn’t quite prepared for how powerfully Kurt Weill and his fellow Weimar songwriters would speak in 2019.
Leann Osterkamp
Passionate educator, solo/collaborative pianist, and recording artist Leann Osterkamp talks about her time in NYFOS’s Emerging Artist program and reveals her (crazy) solution to winter weather’s wear on her fingers. Leann will return to NYFOS’s Mainstage in Hyphenated-Americans on February 20, 2019 at Merkin Hall.
Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians play “Auld Lang Syne”
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Guy Lombardo plays “Winter Wonderland”
Song of the Day is off for the holidays, but we are re-posting a week of...
Holiday Performances by Robert Shaw
When I knew I was going to offer a week of holiday music, it was a no brainer that one day would be devoted to Robert Shaw. While at Carnegie Hall, I ran the Professional Training Workshops that included Shaw’s Choral workshops. From 1992 to 1998, for one week each January, I had the honor and privilege of being right there with him, watching and listening as he prepared one of the great choral masterpieces.
Benita Valente’s holiday album “Gloria, Gloria”
I’m offering a full recording today, Gloria, Gloria. It was recorded June 1987 in the Gorard College Chapel, Philadelphia and features soprano Benita Valente, The Philadelphia Singers and Concerto Soloists Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia with Michael Korn conducting. I bought this when it was released later that same year, as a cassette…yes, a cassette. I enjoyed it many times and then set it aside (switched to CDs and then to internet radio) and was so thrilled when I recently came across it on Youtube.
Leontyne Price’s Christmas album
It is Price at her prime and her best and in the hands of Karajan with the Vienna Philharmonic it is a magical collaboration rarely heard. The recording captures that gorgeous shimmering lush sound that she was famous for and here, performing these beautiful carols and hymns, it is simply one of the loveliest Christmas recordings (or recordings period) ever produced.
Andrea Clearfield: You Bring Out the Doctor in Me
The final song of the day for this week is Andrea Clearfield’s arresting You Bring Out the Doctor in Me from the 2013 AIDS Quilt Songbook. The AIDS Quilt Songbook (AQSB) is an ongoing, collaborative song cycle that had its initial premiere in Alice Tully Hall in 1992, a truly desperate time for New York and many other cities hit hard by the AIDS epidemic. The project was conceived by the late HIV-positive baritone William Parker as a way to raise money and awareness, as well as to sing songs specifically about the disease, something which had not been done in classical music before then. At that time there were no medications to fight this disease, and a feeling of hopelessness and rage infused the original collection of songs with an undeniable power.
Hans Abrahamsen: Now I do not mind
Written for soprano/conductor/force of nature Barbara Hannigan, and the Berlin...
Mohammad Reza Shajarian and Parviz Meshkatian: Bīdād
The third song this week is the long-form cycle Bīdād (بیداد) “Injustice” by Persian music master vocalist and instrumentalist Mohammad Reza Shajarian (محمدرضا شجریان), and the late Persian composer and santour (a Persian hammered dulcimer) virtuso Parviz Meshkatian (پرویز مشکاتیان).
Frank Zappa: The Jazz Discharge Party Hats
My second choice this week is the tongue-in-cheek song “The Jazz Discharge Party Hats,” by another American, and wearer of many hats, Frank Zappa, from his 1983 release The Man from Utopia. Zappa wrote music in all genres from rock to orchestral, and was noted for the theatrical nature of many of his works and wild lives shows, his embrace of the avant-garde (in both America and Europe), and his staunch political and social stances which often clashed with established norms.
Nina Simone sings “Strange Fruit” by Abel Meeropol
My first selection is Jewish-American songwriter Abel Meeropol’s “Strange Fruit,” as performed by the incomparable Nina Simone from her 1974 release A Portrait of Nina. Meeropol penned the initial poem in 1937, under the name “Bitter Fruit,” in reaction to Lawrence Beitler’s photograph of the 1930 lynching of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith in Marion, Indiana. Meeropol eventually set the poem himself as a protest against lynchings and violence toward people of color and changed the title to what it is is today.