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 10^th year); Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts (its 7^th 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.