You never know which concert is going to become the year’s Big Event. I approach every project as if the fate of the world hung on my getting it just right. This season we revived two important, long-forgotten music theater pieces in November (Weill’s Silverlake and Blitzstein’s No For an Answer), gave Harlem’s gay subculture center stage in […]
Read MoreToday wasn’t just our dress rehearsal, it was our Dress Rehearsal. The concert at Caramoor usually feels like a final run before the New York show on Tuesday, but this year it’s different. For one thing, there is no New York show because of the #$%^#&@*@ corona virus. And there will be only a tiny, […]
Read MoreThis has been a lovely experience, a week of warm feelings, good discussions, support, kindness, and fine music-making. But I’ve been waiting in vain for the Big Breakthrough, the dramatic moment where you know an artist has loosened his or her shackles and is now able to fly higher than they ever did before. I […]
Read MoreIn 2014 Caramoor asked me to include a fifth apprentice artist in the Vocal Rising Stars mix: a pianist. Initially I balked at the suggestion—it meant another mouth to feed, a possible impediment to the intimacy of working with the singers. After the first year (with piano genius Leann Osterkamp) I changed my mind. Each […]
Read MoreBénédicte Jourdois joined us today. She is one of the premier French coaches in America, a superb pianist, a peerless musician, an assistant conductor at the Met, a colleague of mine at Juilliard. They don’t call her Bénédicte for nothing—she is a blessing. Béné is mostly asked to work on French repertoire, and I actually […]
Read MoreI was out of sorts today. I had to get up uncharacteristically early (5:30 AM), and after a productive morning I got snagged by an infuriating series of delays that made me twenty minutes late for rehearsal. It seems to be my special gift to squander a luxury of time and end up in the […]
Read MoreWe had visitors today, two people I was especially looking forward to meeting. César Parreño’s parents flew in from Ecuador to visit their son and hear next Wednesday’s concert. I am always excited to meet my students’ families, but this was something special. You see, César is the first person from Ecuador ever to attend […]
Read MoreOne picture, worth 1000 words: Santiago Pizarro showing Leonardo Granados some cool Peruvian rhythms. First on drums, then at the piano, grooving to a sexy, exotic beat. It was a side of Santiago I had never seen, though I suspected it was there. The two of them had quite an amazing little jam session. Santiago […]
Read MoreI don’t know how Adam Cates and Mary Birnbaum do it. They are able to sustain positive energy hour after hour as we slam this show together. Today we had an ambitious agenda, and when I heard them say “We’ll stage the four operetta numbers in two hours,” I raised an eyebrow. And no, we […]
Read MoreWe had our first day of rehearsal today for this year’s NYFOS@Juilliard show, Cubans in Paris. It’s a tricky process: more than half of my cast is also rehearsing The Mother of Us All by Virgil Thomson, scheduled for performances at the Metropolitan Museum in early February. I cannot imagine what it feels like to […]
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