It has been such a treat to be asked to host the NYFOS Song of the Day blog over the course of this week. Many thanks to each one of you for following me on this adventure through my Steve Blier music binder! I so hope to meet many of you on either March 15th […]
Read MoreToday’s post will be a bit shorter than my first three as I am in a particularly crazy part of my week. No week of featuring “Songs in the Key of Steven Blier” would be complete without a song by Argentinian composer Carlos Guastavino. Steve first brought Guastavino’s music into life during my junior year at […]
Read MoreWidely unknown but celebrated by NYFOS, Marc Blitzstein just might be my all-time favorite 20th century song composer. Yes—you read that correctly. I like Blitzstein more than Bernstein, the Beatles, Britten, Barber, and any other 20th century composer that starts with a Bravo or an Alpha, Charlie, or Delta for that matter. My “Songs in the Key of Steven Blier” […]
Read MoreFor the past three years I have lived in a ground floor, one bedroom apartment in the Hamilton Heights area of New York City. I actually found the apartment listing on Craigslist in my attempts to find something being rented directly by owner instead of through a broker. Normally I am skeptical of Craigslist ads […]
Read MoreBy way of introduction, my name is Thomas West. I am a baritone originally from Chattanooga, Tennessee and am thrilled to be taking over the Song of the Day blog this week in anticipation of this year’s Caramoor Rising Stars residency. It has been six years now since I first met Steven Blier as a […]
Read MoreFrom Ann Gregg, a producer, program designer, educator and musician I recently saw Hadestown and was blown away by the end of the first half. The musical is about a Greek tragedy and though set thousands of years ago has a song, “The Wall”, with lyrics that ring true now. Composed by Anaïs Mitchell, it has a lyric […]
Read MoreFrom Tim Coffey, Caramoor’s Artistic Planning Manager It’s winter on the east coast so naturally I’m thinking about a warm sunny day at the beach. And who better to put me in the mood — The Beach Boys. To be honest though, I’ve been on a beach boys kick for about a year now. Growing […]
Read MoreFrom Kathy Schuman, Caramoor’s VP, Artistic Planning and Executive Producer As we prepare to celebrate Stephen Sondheim’s 90th birthday, my thoughts turned to this hilarious song I first heard in a student revue back in college. Written by Mary Rodgers, with lyrics by Sondheim, this lesser-known 1966 song was meant to be a send up of […]
Read MoreFrom Caramoor’s Senior Artistic Planning Manager, Ellie Gisler Murphy The English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams was known to be deeply intellectual and progressive — a man moved by Shakespeare, and inspired by humanists like Walt Whitman. Well into his career, Europe was thrust into a horrific war and in 1916, Vaughan Williams volunteered for the […]
Read MoreJoan Sutherland is indisputably one of the greatest opera singers to have ever lived. Her performances of the coloratura repertoire set the standard for all who have followed, and are the gold standard in living memory. I do not know the exact circumstances of the recording of this video, but it appears to be a […]
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