NYFOS Record’s latest release is Schubert / Beatles featuring baritone Theo Hoffman, pianists Steven Blier and Kunal Lahiry, and special guests soprano Julia Bullock and tenor Andrew Owens.

First introduced to NYFOS audiences in NYC eight years ago as a thrilling live concert, this program pairs Schubert songs with Beatles songs on similar themes, and, in Blier’s words, “Lo and behold, the Holy of Holies sits comfortably next to the Oldie of Oldies.” Yesterday and Im Frühling are hymns to lost love, while Der Wanderer an den Mond and She’s Leaving Home tell contrasting stories of young people cast adrift into the world.  

“On closer inspection, the Schubert-Beatles connection makes a lot of sense,” NYFOS Artistic Director Steven Blier continued. “Both had short careers: Schubert’s was truncated by his tragic death at age 31, while the meteor of the Beatles flamed out in a tangle of discord and exhaustion after just seven years of international fame. Both created art that captured their Zeitgeist for all time—the warmth of the early Romantic era, and the brash, swinging, psychedelic 60s. Above all, both explore young adulthood with literacy and depth: the confusions of early romances, first betrayals and break-ups, the sense of yearning for something unnamable and just out of reach.” 

“Schubert/Beatles represents a truly authentic portrait of my artistic identity: the music of the Beatles, which inspired me to become a musician, and that of Schubert, which inspired me to become a classical singer,” notes Theo Hoffman. “Schubert represents the pop music of the day. Not initially presented in glittering concert halls, but in cozy parlors, for friends to share. The Beatles had similar humble beginnings in the taverns of Liverpool—intellectual artsy kids writing love songs for the people, coming straight out of the European song tradition. Schubert/Beatles was a project with a collaborative spirit from start to finish, and it has been one of the great honors of my life to release my debut album with NYFOS, an organization that has supported my career from the very beginning.”

Additional repertoire on the new album partners iconic Beatles favorites such as The Word, Julia, Taxman, and While My Guitar Gently Weeps with Schubert Lieder, including An Schwager Kronos, Du bist die Ruh, and Im Frühling, emphasizing the similarities and the genius of two distinct voices in songwriting over a century apart. “They might at first seem like an odd couple – but oh, what a beautiful marriage,” concludes Steven Blier about the musical pairing.

This album was funded in part by a generous gift from Eileen Caulfield Schwab, in recognition of the featured Terrance W. Schwab Vocal Rising Stars program alumni: Julia Bullock, Theo Hoffman, & Andrew Owens.

NYFOS has gathered together a collection of treasured performances on this wide-ranging album. Spanning over 20 years of memorable moments and voices, it features performances by the NYFOS ensemble of performers, many of whom are stars of the opera and concert world – Michael Spyres, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, Kate Lindsey, Sasha Cooke, Bernarda Fink, Justin Austin, Kurt Ollmann, Brett Polegato, and Lucia Bradford – alongside singing actors like Darius de Haas, Jennifer Aylmer, Hal Cazalet, Dana Hanchard, and James Martin.

“In typical NYFOS fashion this album embraces not just a wide range of music sung by a galaxy of star vocalists, but also a span of venues,” NYFOS Artistic Director Steven Blier said. “Some are from live concerts; some were done at the old WQXR studios on lower Fifth Avenue, where we briefly had carte blanche to record songs for a broadcast radio show. We even made a few gorgeous recordings in my living room, where Sasha Cooke sang Brad Mehldau’s haunting Love Sublime; it’s also where I recorded the piano parts for Kate Lindsey’s two tunes during the Covid quarantine.” 

Repertoire includes classics like Come Sunday by Duke Ellington Auf der Bruck by Schubert, and En sourdine by Fauré, as well as rarities—the premiere recording of a stunning German art song, Abendlied, written by a now-forgotten Holocaust survivor, Georg Jokl; a super-charming 18th Spanish song called El dulce de América; and a hidden gem from the Harlem Renaissance, What Harlem Is to Me, with lyrics by the great Andy Razaf. It is this distinctive programming that Opera News has praised by saying, “If you’ve never had the pleasure of attending an NYFOS concert, now is your chance to hear what the fuss is about from the comfort of your home.”

This album would not have been possible without significant support from Carll Tucker and the Marcia Brady Tucker Foundation. Our deepest gratitude to them and to Steven Blier for underwriting “Addio ai Viennesi”; Peter Kazaras & Armin Baier for underwriting “Auf der Bruck”; Claire Molloy & Seth Lloyd for underwriting “Psyché”; the Julian Autrey Song Foundation for underwriting “What Harlem Is to Me”; Eileen Caulfield Schwab for underwriting “It Makes My Love Come Down”; and Peter Thall for underwriting “Abendlied”.

Mi País: Songs of Argentina is the latest studio album from NYFOS Records, featuring bass-baritone Federico De Michelis and pianist and NYFOS Artistic Director Steven Blier. In addition to De Michelis and Blier, the album features César Andrés Parreño (tenor), Shinjoo Cho (bandoneon), Sami Merdinian (violin), and Pablo Lanouguere (double bass). 

“When I first heard Federico De Michelis in the winter of 2022,” Blier said, “I knew I was in the presence of an authentic Buenos Aires voice, filled with all its tenderness, its poetry, and its bruised machismo. Five minutes after our first concert together I asked him to make a CD with me to celebrate our shared love of porteño song. Mi país: Songs of Argentina is the realization of that dream, a dive into the spellbinding delicacy of its art songs as well as the sultry five o’clock shadow of its tangos.”

“The songs on Mi País come directly out of my soul,” said Federico De Michelis. “I feel fortunate to have a partner like Steve Blier, who feels them as deeply as I do.” 

The prolific composer Guastavino, known for his lyricism, simplicity, and faith in tonality, was nicknamed the “The Schubert of the Pampas” and the album features four of his works, alongside three songs by Carlos López Buchardo, whose “music glows with a soft sensuality unlike that of any other Argentinean composer,” explains Blier.

The album naturally turns to tango, which Blier said is “as intrinsic an expression of [Argentinean] culture as the blues is for North Americans.” Journeying from the classic “El día que me quieras (If ever you should love me)” from the 1920s and 30s “King of Tango” Carlos Gardel, the album also includes tracks by other renowned tangueros: Mariano Mores and Héctor Stamponi.

Astor Piazzolla, who melded elements of jazz with the counterpoint of Bach, lifted tango to some of its greatest heights. His music bears the imprint of Gardel, Ginastera, Nadia Boulanger, and Bartók, and his “Siempre se vuelve a Buenos Aires (You always come back to Buenos Aires)” captures the addictive feeling of nostalgia that runs through much of Argentina’s music and poetry.

“I carry a deep longing for Buenos Aires, even though I have never even been there and may never get to see that magical city,” said Blier. “But I’ll always have these beautiful songs to show me ‘that melancholy’—and irresistible—’way to love.’ And I shall always come back to Buenos Aires through her music—just as Piazzolla’s song predicts.”

This recording was funded, in part, by a generous grant from dear friends of NYFOS. Our deepest gratitude to them, and to all our founding NYFOS Records supporters.

Black & Blue is the debut solo album of British-American tenor Joshua Blue. Recorded at Big Orange Sheep in November 2022, and produced by Steven Blier and Jonathan Estabrooks, Black & Blue explores themes of racial equality and human resilience, in songs spanning over five decades. The disc includes two songs receiving their first-ever recordings: Freedom Train and Negrita. Blue performs together with NYFOS Artistic Director Steven Blier at the piano, showcasing their long-standing artistic relationship.  

“In the past few years, Josh Blue and I have established an incandescent musical partnership,” Steven Blier said. “This is due as much to Josh’s soaring vocalism as to our repertoire, which includes a few mainstream pieces like Black & Blue and Day Dream, but also a number of extraordinary songs that haven’t been heard in many decades, including Freedom Train, Red Beans and Rice, The Yellow Dog Blues, and Negrita. Most of the composers and lyricists on our CD are Black, and several of the songs will be receiving their first-ever recording. All of them are unforgettable, and speak to the issues of our time with surprising power.”

The title track, Black & Blue, was written in 1929 by Broadway lyricist, Andy Razaf, and his writing partner, “Fats” Waller. Razaf was coerced at gunpoint by NYC mobster “Dutch” Schultz into writing a “comic song about how hard it was to be Black”; the song, a passionate lament,  received an ovation upon its premiere and a grudging, affirming nod from Schultz. Similarly Freedom Train, written by Langston Hughes in 1947 and set to music by Thomas Hayward, explores themes of racial tension during the post WWII era. Receiving its first recording by Blue and Blier, the song was inspired by a cross-country Freedom Train tour that was meant to unite Americans in the post-war era, but also exposed racial inequality in several Southern cities that insisted on segregated viewing. The resulting controversy inspired Hughes to write his famous poem.

Performed alongside well-known works including Paul Simon’s American Tune and Lewis Allen’s Strange Fruit, Negrita is a sizzling rumba that was published by W.C. Handy in 1935. Blier and Blue have collaborated on many of Handy’s songs for NYFOS concerts, who is best known for his career as the “Father of Blues” with songs like St. Louis Blues and Memphis Blues.

“This album to me is about two things,” Joshua Blue said. “An opportunity to share the magic that happens when Steve and I perform together with the world, and a celebration of the music that shaped me as an artist before opera was even a blip on my radar. From Big Brother to Black and Blue to Ride on King Jesus, these songs and musical styles helped make me, well, me.” 

A Picnic Cantata is the result of a one-time collaboration between the piano-duo team of Arthur Gold and Robert Fizdale, the composer Paul Bowles, and the poet James Schuyler. Originally premiered at New York’s Town Hall in 1953, A Picnic Cantata was well-received, but never published.

The seven-movement work balances sensuality with innocence and lightness with hints of foreboding. In its hyper-realistic world, a picnic basket seems to hold the entire contents of Zabar’s and a car materializes on cue, as four friends—two sopranos and two altos—magically gather together. Bowles’ music dips into the exotic sounds of Morocco and Ceylon, Poulenc-style post-impressionism, and pure American tunefulness to paint the journey, and Schuyler’s libretto melds the directness of Gertrude Stein with the fantasy of Maurice Sendak, allowing simple things to become paradoxical and mysterious. 

Having wanted to make a studio recording of the work for over three decades, Mr. Blier said, “Paul Bowles’ A Picnic Cantata has been something of a NYFOS signature since the early 1990s. Alternatively spiky and lyrical, utterly unpredictable, and oddly graceful, Bowles’ music won me over. Coming home to Paul Bowles’ music and James Schuyler’s words has been a pleasure and something of a revelation. In the 25 years since we first encountered A Picnic Cantata, we’ve learned more about both the composer and the poet. Its colors seem more vibrant than ever.” 

Featured singles from the album:

‘Round Midnight
by Thelonious Monk / Bernie Hanighen,
arr. Ricky Ian Gordon performed by Blythe and Blier

Take the Moment
by Richard Rodgers / Stephen Sondheim; performed by Burden and Blier