For the last 10 years, I’ve spent nearly every waking hour thinking about early music, as the administrative director of Juilliard Historical Performance. So I could not let the opportunity to share songs with the erudite NYFOS audience pass by without at least one example of repertoire from whence it all started. This is a piece from the early days of sung drama by Giulio Caccini. It’s from a set of songs called Le nuove musiche (The New Music) that aimed to explore new possibilities of expression. Imagine being there for the first time this piece was ever heard!
Read MoreBack in the day, specialization in music was unheard of. To be a musician was to be a composer, performer, multi-instrumentalist (hello, Mozart), improviser, and/or impresario. If you played the oboe in a Baroque orchestra, for example, you probably also played the recorder, and you may have sung as well. Caroline Shaw is a modern-day incarnation of this ideal—a remarkably versatile musician who is expert at many things.
Read MoreEver fallen down the YouTube rabbit hole? You know, you innocently start looking for something and three hours later you look up from your iPad, having forsaken all social niceties (and biological necessities), and wonder what happened to the afternoon? I don’t know who has the time to load every video ever made in the history of media, but I for one am thankful that it’s all there.
Read MoreSchubert. So many songs, and yet so few of them are heard in performance. Here is one of my favorite lesser known gems sung by the amazing Nicolai Gedda. For me, he’s the perfect mix of bel canto ease and just plain class. And I, for one, don’t mind that the recording has not been airbrushed to perfection using all the gewgaws of modern-day recording technology. There are a few blemishes in pitch and tone that make it all the more human. And it’s a really hard song!
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