NYFOS Next 2025-2026
The series for new song
Curated by Nathaniel LaNasa
Subscriptions to the 3-program NYFOS Next series available now ($45). Single tickets available below.
The Color of Where You Can Never Go
Sun, Oct 5, 3PM
The Theater at 150 W 17 Street
The color of where you can never go is an afternoon in a thrall of uncrossable distances. The recital takes its name from Christopher Trapani’s lushly resonant song cycle on prose by Rebecca Solnit, and gives voice to “that melancholy wonder that is the blue of distance.” Amelia Brey’s indignant Eurydice and Sofía Rocha’s aching The River explore the pain of impossible returns, while Eve Beglarian’s weightless Dream Amid Bed–woods offers a warning not to give into the seductions of a lushly described “orchard dormitory.” Beglarian’s meditation Peace invites stillness even amid the knowledge of “another valley.” Vast distances between intimates animates Herschel Garfein’s A Tuesday Spot and Shawn Chang’s Blue, a humorous confessional that traverses the wastelands and dead ends of social media. Sopranos Sharon Harms and Emily Finke make their NYFOS debuts, and are joined by baritone Gregory Feldmann and mezzo-soprano Devony Smith.
Student tickets ($10) available here.
The Many Worlds Interpretation
Sun, Nov 16, 3PM
The Theater at 150 W 17 Street
Why go looking for infinite quantum realities, when we struggle to make sense of even two conflicting sides of the same story? The Many Worlds Interpretation takes playful aim at tellings and retellings of our self-narratives. Kimberly Osberg’s wistful You, Us, Me mourns an “us” that never had room for “me.” Sarah Gibson’s Breath’d back again, written for tenor Benjamin Brecher, remixes poems of Thomas Moore to unmoor stories of our own anguish in “endless space.” Michael Stephen Brown’s Love’s Lives Lost, on poetry by Evan Shinners, is inspired by Robert Schumann’s Frauenliebe und -Leben. This tender, poignant, witty cycle tells of an unexpected reunion between former lovers and their contrasting interpretations of their shared past. The composer joins the work’s dedicatee, soprano Susanna Phillips, to give this New York premiere.
Student tickets ($10) available here.
Same River Twice
June 2026, date and location tba
In June 2026, NYFOS Next’s latest collaboration presents a meditation on possibility and impossibility in The Same River Twice, featuring three world premieres of new songs by Luna Composition Lab alumni Alicia Erlandson, Elisa Johnson, and Devon Lee, commissioned by NYFOS and celebrating the tenth anniversary of Luna Lab’s founding. Soprano Jennifer Zetlan and mezzo-soprano Kelly Guerra will work closely with these young composers on works written for their voices, and the program will be filled out by selections from Luna Lab’s roster of superstar mentors.
Single tickets $25; student tickets $10
Seating for the NYFOS Next series is general admission. No physical tickets will be used for this program; attendees’ names will be on a list at the door. Walk-up ticket buyers welcome!
NYFOS Next is New York Festival of Song’s “invaluable contemporary-music series” (The New Yorker). With an emphasis on spontaneity, novelty, and collaboration, NYFOS Next offers a forum for song composers to share their work, and gives audiences an intimate encounter with the creative process, as new songs are presented in an informal setting. Composers and performers are invited to curate and host their own programs, showcasing their own work and the works of their peers, students or mentors. Past curators include Mark Adamo, Clarice Assad, Mark Campbell, Christopher Cerrone, Mohammed Fairouz, Gregory Feldmann, Gabriela Lena Frank, Kyle Jarrow (with Lauren Worsham), Gabriel Kahane, Laura Kaminsky, Laura Karpman & Nora Kroll-Rosenbaum, Carla Kilhstedt, Phil Kline, Lowell Liebermann, David T. Little, Harold Meltzer, Paul Moravec, John Musto, Russell Platt, Kevin Puts, Bright Sheng, and Joseph Thalken. Nathaniel LaNasa returns as the curator of the 25-26 NYFOS Next series.