This week, soprano María Valdés curates Song of the Day. She will perform with NYFOS next Tuesday, April 26th, in Compositora: Songs by Latin American Women, alongside baritone Efraín Solís. She is a recent alumna of the Adler Fellowship at San Francisco Opera where she sang and covered several roles. Her performance with NYFOS will mark her New York recital debut.

Letter to a Lover (Gabriel Kahane with Brooklyn Rider)

Today’s Song of the Day is brought to you by Gabriel Kahane, one of my favorite up-and-coming composers. His works have been lauded by the classical music scene as well as the pop world, having been performed at symphony halls and rock venues alike. His album The Ambassador , for instance, was acclaimed by Rolling Stone Magazine as “one of the year’s very best albums.”

He is joined by a group of similar prestige, Brooklyn Rider. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette describes them as “four classical musicians performing with the energy of young rock stars jamming on their guitars, a Beethoven-goes-indie foray into making classical music accessible but also celebrating why it was good in the first place.”

I think artists like these are essential to continuing the classical tradition. They offer a solution to our constant efforts to keep classical music welcoming to and relevant to new audiences.

I’ve chosen to share a piece from Gabriel Kahane’s LP, The Fiction Issue. It tells the story of a man (presumably) going to pick up his girlfriend from the airport. The text is forthright but still maintains poetic integrity with its vivid imagery. This quality is typical of Kahane. He talks about everyday experiences, whether mundane or extraordinary—something we can all relate to.