latest posts
Jazmine Sullivan: Stupid Girl
Born and raised in Philadelphia, Jazmine Sullivan stands among my favorite singers alive. Her raw vocal dynamism and flawless technique are matched by an incisive lyricism. Her songwriting feels both old and new—jazz, motown, R&B, and hip-hop meld with electronic production, often in the context of unconventional structure.
Rachmaninov: Ne poy, krasavitsa, pri mne
I first heard Anita Rachvelishvili with my grandmother in a Met simulcast of Carmen. (I share a love of opera with both my grandmothers, for which I’m eternally grateful.) A year later, I was a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed first-year masters student at Juilliard, stumbling around YouTube in search of repertoire, and I found Rachvelishvili’s powerful rendition of this Rachmaninov warhorse, “Ne poy, krasavitsa, pri mne.”
Kelela: Frontline
Blending R&B vocals with innovative electronic production, and citing influences from Janet Jackson to Björk to Betty Carter, Kelela represents, in my estimation and that of the New York Times Magazine and The Guardian, a new musical forefront. Unfettered by convention and meticulous in her production, she speaks directly to a marginalized black, queer audience about empowerment and self-determination.
William Bolcom, composer
Our very first Artist of the Month is a longtime friend of NYFOS: Pulitzer Prize-winning composer William Bolcom. He answers our questions about song, singers, and his history with Steve in advance of our NYFOS@Juilliard concert in celebration of his 80th birthday.
Edvard Grieg: Ein Traum
My parents were both of Norwegian heritage, and hailed from Minnesota. They met as grad students at the Eastman School of Music, and spent their careers as music educators. Needless to say, our house was filled with music, and I was introduced to the works of Edvard Grieg at an early age. Later in life when I began to sing his songs, I could feel myself tapping a rich vein of familiarity and love. Grieg is the foremost Norwegian composer, and his songs stand out as premiere examples of the Scandinavian contribution to the art form.
John Musto: Litany
“Litany”, from John Musto’s masterful set of songs Shadow of the Blues is, in...
Joni Mitchell: Hejira
After weighing endless options, I finally flipped a coin and selected the title song from “Hejira”. It’s vintage Joni and from the period just before her voice began to fray due to her obsessive love affair with American Spirit cigarettes.
Annie Ross: Twisted
After I finally accepted the fact that I had no future as a rock singer, I switched to jazz, which is a bit easier on the voice. I am still very nostalgic for this period of my life. I was like a kid in a candy store and couldn’t get enough of discovering new artists, especially singers—female, preferably.
Sting: Fragile
My parents were professional musicians who kept throwing instruments at me to see which one would stick, so I learned to play multiple instruments but none of them well. Eventually I realized that my true instrument was in my throat, and my teenage rebellion took the form of choosing to go into the very form of music they found the least appealing—rock.
Leonard Bernstein: A Julia de Burgos
This particular song portrays the voice of a woman who has broken free of societal roles and expectations. She sings that through her art, she is authentically herself and is not at the ownership or disposal of anyone or anything. Julia de Burgos was a Puerto Rican civil rights activist who lived from 1914-1953. Traveling between Puerto Rico, New York, and Cuba, she was fully involved in the nationalist philosophies that defined her life.
Leonard Bernstein: Pass the Football
This terrific remastered original cast recording from the 1953 rendition of Wonderful Town portrays Wreck, a guy who describes his fame and glory days as a student because of his ability to pass the ol’ pigskin. In this hilarious song, Wreck can’t spell, read, or write… but he introduced Albert Einstein, passed the bar exam, had every girl he could ever want, and got every scholarship… because he could pass that football!!
Leonard Bernstein: Somewhere
Perhaps Bernstein’s most well-known work, “Somewhere” has an inherent timeless relevance. It expresses the hope of a world in which conflict is absent and people are able to live without prejudice and hatred. Bernstein spent his entire life being involved in social justice both in the U.S. and abroad. He was famously quoted, “This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before.”
Leonard Bernstein: Little Smary
“Little Smary” is an example of Bernstein’s art song repertoire outside of the theater. The words are by Jennie Bernstein (Bernstein’s mother). The story depicts a young girl playing with her “wuddit” (rabbit). The story was a common bedtime story told to Bernstein by his mother.
Leonard Bernstein: A Little Bit in Love
From the great theater works of Leonard Bernstein, “A Little Bit in Love” is sung by Eileen, a want-to-be New York actress from Ohio. This delightful song comes from the show Wonderful Town, originally on Broadway in 1953. Eileen and her sister Ruth attempt to hit it big in the Big Apple, only to find themselves entangled in a bunch of mishaps. Eileen, unlike her sister Ruth, is a natural romantic who finds herself “a little bit in love” with many men.
Leonard Bernstein: Prehistoric Man
In the film version of On the Town, NYFOS friends Betty Comden and Adolph Green have the somewhat uptight Ann Miller character lead the gang of on-leave sailors into the Museum of Natural History, where she gets very turned on by the primitive man exhibit. The dancing is fabulous, so is her green dress, and the lyrics are laugh-out-loud funny. But the political incorrectness of everything that happens seems without bound: men are sexy because they are brutish; the sexualized “other” is human but seen as subhuman. If you’ve read the contrarian article entitled “Saviors, Victims, and Savages” on my human rights class syllabus, it is hard watch this silly dance number without your PC antennae up.