(from Steven Blier) I have been listening obsessively to the late American soprano Teresa Stich-Randall this week (as one does). Her name came up during an email interview exchange I was having with writer/critic David Shengold, who casually let it drop that Stich-Randall had been a lesbian. He assumed I knew, but this fact had […]
Read Morefrom Steven Blier: I am up to the “White Album” in my summer traversal of the Beatles songs. My feeling so far is that they reached their apex with “Revolver,” a startlingly good record. But there are certainly some amazing songs on “Sgt. Pepper” (“A Day in the Life” blew my mind—I felt as if I’d never heard it before) […]
Read Morefrom Steven Blier: Right now I am at Wolf Trap working on a concert devoted to the Rodgers clan—songs by Rodgers with both Hart and Hammerstein, along with music by his daughter Mary Rodgers and his grandson Adam Guettel. The comforting, lyrical Rodgers sound is 180-degrees from all the clangy Beatles songs I’ve been cramming into my brain. […]
Read MoreNYFOS artistic director Steven Blier is back making the selections for this week’s Song of the Day. Enjoy today’s selection! My summer has been overflowing with current projects and future ones. I’ve listened to the complete Beatles, hundreds of Schubert Lieder, and am working my way through the complete Rachmaninoff songs while practicing Guastavino, Guettel, and Grieg […]
Read More(from Sari Gruber) With this final Song of the Day, I want to return to my deepest musical roots, and I have been agonizing about this selection, which could have been of any of the great classical composers. Mozart would have been an obvious choice, since his music has followed me throughout my personal and […]
Read More(from soprano Sari Gruber) Sarah Vaughan’s voice became one of the objects of my jazz obsession in college, where I was spending far more time than was probably good for me singing jazz in an a capella group called Redhot & Blue. (The arrangements were great. Don’t judge.) With the high musical standards of this […]
Read More(from soprano Sari Gruber) When a singer welcomes a child into the family, there are many nights of baby-rocking that put to practical use the collection of lullabies learned for the recital stage. De Falla’s “Nana” was a song I had performed only once as a student at Tanglewood Music Center, but it reemerged from my […]
Read More(from soprano Sari Gruber) After discovering American popular music later in my childhood, my mind was also blown at the discovery of musical theater, which was sort of like the opera I had grown up with in Germany, but just so deliciously American. As a twelve-year-old, having lost my German accent and gained an American musical sensibility, I […]
Read MoreThis week’s Song of the Day curator is soprano Sari Gruber! Sari is a longtime friend of NYFOS and will appear in NYFOS’s December 8th concert Schubert / Beatles at Merkin Concert Hall. Make sure to get your tickets today! I arrived in the U.S. at nearly nine years old, speaking very little English and having no […]
Read MoreToday I travel to London to compete in Placido Domingo’s Operalia! Because of his huge involvement in the zarzuela repertoire, there is a portion of the competition devoted to the genre. I’ve had an amazing time preparing two zarzuela arias. Steve Blier helped me pick, of course. This cheeky tune is a young man’s song of devotion to his new wife on their wedding day. In the song, he asks the silversmith how much silver is needed to steal a kiss from the lips of a woman. Wish me luck!
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