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Leonard Cohen: Famous Blue Raincoat
We cover quite a bit of arcana in NYFOS concerts. Forgotten composers, obscure corners of the repertoire from A to Z. We delight in finding these treasures. Many of them defy classification. Is it a folk song, or a pop tune? We don’t think that’s of any importance really.
Childish Gambino: This Is America
Childish Gambino’s (Donald Glover) “This Is America” took the world by storm when it was released earlier this year. A look at years of American culture, packed tightly into an explosive 4 minute video, and portrayed through a series of overlapping scenes mostly relegated to the background of the music video. The video often shows you smiling faces, dancing, novelty, all while the background shows us burning cars, rioting, inactive bystanders, suicide, chaos.
Oddisee: You Grew Up
“You Grew Up” is a look at the outside pressures that affect children, and in this piece men in particular, and how these can skew their views as they grow older. The two examples that artist Oddisee focuses on in this work are those of a young white man who grew up with Oddisee (a black man), and a young Muslim man.
Joyner Lucas: I’m Not Racist
“I’m Not Racist” is a debate between two diametrically opposed men, one white and one black, arguing over the state of race relations in America. It is a raw, uncensored look at the stereotypes and tropes that create the ever-expanding racial divide.
K’naan: Immigrants (We Get the Job Done)
“Immigrants (We Get the Job Done)” is from “The Hamilton Mixtape”, a collection of covers and re-imaginings of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s hit musical “Hamilton”. The piece speaks to the mistreatment of, and resentment towards immigrants in America, and the performers were handpicked by Miranda as people who he believed “represent all corners of the world, in line with the songs message”.
Lucia Bradford
After bringing “rich, burnished tone and fearsome low notes” (Opera News) to NYFOS’s 2017 performances of Bernstein’s Songfest, mezzo-soprano Lucia Bradford returns this November in our Merkin Hall season opener: W.C. Handy and the Birth of the Blues. This October she is our Artist of the Month!
Logic: America
“America” is from the 2017 album “Everybody” by rap artist Logic. This track explores what it means to be an American citizen in today’s society, and makes references to the Trump administration, Kanye West, the Flint water crisis, and white supremacy, among other things.
Howard Ashman and Alan Menken: Be Our Guest
Though Sukkot continues for another few days, Moses and Miriam have burst onto the scene for day 5, providing a musical climax to our journey of songs which evoke the presence of sacred Jewish ancestors. These two siblings lead the Israelites in celebrating their freedom from Egypt on the other side of the sea, and I don’t know of a song that encapsulates singing, dancing, company, and cookery quite as well as this showstopper from the 1991 Disney animated classic.
Jack Yellen and Lew Pollack: My Yiddishe Momme
Jacob’s true love Rachel and favored child Joseph arrive just in time for the fourth day of Sukkot. Unlike our previous pairs this week, these two are mother and son, and are absolutely crying out for this vaudeville classic to be featured today.
Doron Medalie and Stav Berger: Toy
On the third day of Sukkot, Jews welcome the spirits of Jacob and his first wife Leah, the “baby momma” for most of his children and older sister of his true love Rachel (who visits us tomorrow). Rabbinic and scholarly commentaries across the centuries are rife with interpretations about Jacob’s relationship with his wives.
Alicia Keys: Fallin’
Isaac and Rebekah, the ushpizin (sacred ancestral spirits) Jews welcome on the second day of Sukkot, are notorious for the all-too human dimensions of their relationship. The Torah describes Rebekah atop a camel, beautifully dressed, on her way to meet Isaac for the first time. She is so smitten by him that she falls off the camel, a veritable victim of love at first sight.
Jacob Rappaport: Eilu D’varim
This week, Jewish communities all over the world are exhaling, having made it to the end of the High Holiday season. Today begins Sukkot, an eight-day festival filling a number of purposes: the Biblical account of surviving 40 years in the wilderness; the bounty of the fall harvest; and, perhaps most importantly, the miracle of life in all its fragile, temporal beauty.
Victor Jara: Manifesto
The last couple of months I spent a significant amount of time in South America, and the majority in Chile. Unsurprisingly, the legacy of the dictatorship is still very present in the politics and culture of the country, and specifically on the streets of Santiago where during the wintertime students and other activists take to the streets.
Sara Bareilles: Seriously
This is a song called “Seriously” written by Sara Bareilles and performed by Leslie Odom Jr. It’s supposed to be an imagining of what then president Barack Obama might have been thinking during the 2016 election but was not at liberty to say.
Lin-Manuel Miranda: History Has Its Eyes On You
This is a song from the Hamilton Mixtape, which I believe is pretty well known and popular at the moment. (I don’t even totally know, I live in Europe!) It’s a song that is sung by George Washington in the original show and is an insightful, touching song about how history is written.