January 9, 2014
Info: www.nyfos.org; 646/230-8380

PRESS CONTACT

Aleba Gartner, 212/206-1450
aleba@alebaco.com

“a series that makes a passionate case for the art song
as a can’t-live-without item on any civilized traveler’s packing list.”
— THE NEW YORK TIMES on NYFOS Next

FESTIVAL OPENING NIGHT

PAUL MORAVEC & FRIENDS

BRIGHT SHENG & FRIENDS

The “exquisite blend of the musical East and West” of Bright Sheng (The New York Times) closes out three weeks of contemporary song and the 2014-15 NYFOS Next series. The Chinese-American composer and MacArthur Fellow hosts and curates a concert that includes a preview of the opening to his new opera Dream of the Red Chamber, written with co-librettist David Henry Hwang. The opera is set to premiere with the San Francisco Opera in fall 2016.

Sheng, the Leonard Bernstein Distinguished University Professor of Composition at the University of Michigan, will also showcase recent work from his students Brandon Scott Rumsey, Iman Habibi, and Matthew Tommasini, and an affectionate acknowledgement of his mentors, George Perle and Leonard Bernstein. Sheng's diverse background informs an approach that Anthony Tommasini in The New York Times writes, “has won critical respect and appreciative audiences for works that deftly synthesize wildly varied musical influences.” The Telegraph (UK) called Sheng's opera Madam Mao, which debuted at Santa Fe Opera in 2003, “…extraordinary music and a riveting evening in the theater.”

The Series for New Song

“a breath of fresh air on the scene of serious vocal music." — Q ON STAGE

“People have a primal need to be sung to and communicated with through song. The essential core of truth in each song—that part where you feel ‘that's me, I've been there’—that’s what we’re always looking for.” — Steven Blier

Now in its 27th season, NEW YORK FESTIVAL OF SONG (NYFOS) is dedicated to creating intimate song concerts of great beauty and originality. Weaving music, poetry, history and humor into evenings of compelling theater, NYFOS fosters community among artists and audiences. Each program entertains and educates in equal measure.
 
Founded by pianists Michael Barrett and Steven Blier in 1988, NYFOS continues to produce NYFOS MAINSTAGE, its series of thematic song programs, drawing together rarely-heard songs of all kinds, overriding traditional distinctions between high and low performance genres, exploring the character and language of other cultures, and the personal voices of song composers and lyricists.
 
Since its founding, NYFOS has particularly celebrated American song. Among the many highlights is the double bill of one-act comic operas, Bastianello and Lucrezia, by John Musto and William Bolcom, both with libretti by Mark Campbell, commissioned and premiered by NYFOS in 2008 and recorded on Bridge Records. In addition to Bastianello and Lucrezia and the 2008 Bridge Records release of Spanish Love Songs with Joseph Kaiser and the late Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, NYFOS has produced five recordings on the Koch label, including a Grammy Award-winning disc of Bernstein’s Arias and Barcarolles, and the Grammy-nominated recording of Ned Rorem’s Evidence of Things Not Seen (also a NYFOS commission) on New World Records. Its recently released CD on the GPR label, Canción amorosa, focuses on Spanish song—Basque, Catalan, Castilian, and Sephardic—with soprano Corinne Winters accompanied by Steven Blier.
 
In November 2010, NYFOS premiered NYFOS NEXT, a series for new songs, hosted by guest composers in intimate venues. This season the series returns as a mini-festival during the month of February 2015 with all concerts presented at OPERA America’s National Opera Center. In the fall of 2014, NYFOS officially introduced its unamplified cabaret series NYFOS AFTER HOURS at HENRY's Restaurant on the Upper West Side, drawing full houses and superlative voices accompanied by Blier at the piano.
 
NYFOS is passionate about nurturing the artistry and careers of young singers, and through its NYFOS EMERGING ARTISTS program has developed professional training residencies around the country, including The Juilliard School’s Ellen and James S. Marcus Institute for Vocal Arts (now in its 10th year); Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts (its 7th year in March 2015); San Francisco Opera Center (over 15 years as of March 2014); Glimmerglass Opera (2008–2010); and its newest project, NYFOS@North Fork in Orient, NY (2 years).
 
NYFOS’s concert series, touring programs, radio broadcasts, recordings, and educational activities continue to spark new interest in the creative possibilities of the song program, and have inspired the creation of thematic vocal series around the world.

“New York Festival of Song reinvented the song recital.” — The New Yorker

 

Sunday, March 15, 2015, 4:00 pm
Caramoor's Vocal Rising Stars

Caramoor Center in Katonah, NY

Tuesday, March 17, 2015, 8:00 pm

Merkin Concert Hall at Kaufman Music Center

NYFOS Mainstage

Monday, March 30, 2015, 7:00 pm
NYFOS Spring Gala
Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall

 
Monday, May 4, 2015, 10:00 pm
Great American Songwriting Teams
HENRY's Restaurant
NYFOS After Hours

NYFOS Mainstage and NYFOS Next are funded, in part, by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

Caramoor's Terrance W. Schwab Vocal Rising Stars program is made possible by generous support from the Terrance W. Schwab Endowment Fund for Young Vocal Artists.

For further information, press tickets, photos, and to arrange interviews,
please contact Aleba & Co. at 212/206-1450 or aleba@alebaco.com.