what`s new - New York Festival of Song

what’s new
Andrew Garland, Amy Burton and Hal Cazalet in the New York Festival of Song’s performance of English Garden, Earthly
Delights. Photo by Gabe Palacio.
“Everyone has a primal need to be sung to.”
“People say, ‘Oh, you do all those obscure songs,’” says Steven Blier, artistic director of New York Festival of Song
(NYFOS). “But a song isn’t obscure just because you haven’t heard it. Think of it as a friend you haven’t met yet.” This
year, NYFOS celebrates 20 years of introducing artists and audience members to terrific songs in evenings that can
feel like dream dinner parties — the kind where a group of fascinating strangers come together to have wonderfully
unexpected conversations.
A dizzying diversity has been a hallmark of NYFOS programming since its 1988 founding by Blier and Michael Barrett.
This has challenged Blier and his collaborators to be extremely versatile, as when a program centered on two Russian
20th-century poets was followed a scant month later by “Fats and Fields,” a tribute to lyricist Dorothy Fields and
songwriter Fats Waller. “That kind of plunge has been important and bracing — it’s a kind of Polar Bear Club of music
making.”
Later this month, NYFOS will present two newly-commissioned comic operas for five singers and two pianos, each with
a libretto by Mark Campbell. John Musto’s Bastianello is based on an Italian folktale and set in 18th-century rural Italy;
William Bolcom’s Lucrezia is a riff on a seduction satire by Machiavelli. “All of our programs are meant to have some kind
of narrative,” says Blier, “so why not do opera?”
Why not, indeed, especially since NYFOS already counts the librettist and composers — all respected opera artists — as
members of the family. The organization has previously commissioned works by all three, and drawn heavily on their back
catalogs as well. “Just because something is a few years old doesn’t mean it’s tarnished goods,” says Blier. Musto has
made frequent appearances on NYFOS programs, both as a pianist and composer, since its first season. For Blier, Bolcom
is something of a role model: “He is such a cowboy — he embraces everything and plays everything. He really reveres
American popular song. He loves modern music but has no patience for the kind of highly touted academic music that is,
essentially, dull. He doesn’t see any divide between art and entertainment.”
“These are two composers who have honored song and honored American traditions,” says Blier, who strives to do the
same — and still find time for other compelling musical traditions from around the world, from Spain to Scandinavia.
“When you play everything, it can be hard for people to get a fix on what you do. I feel song can be misunderstood and
undervalued in the musical establishment, but our concerts play to sold-out houses. Everyone has a primal need to be
sung to. There is nothing as arresting, personal or important as a song.”
spring 2008
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