Celebrated actress Kathleen Chalfant answers our questions as NYFOS’s Artist of the Month in advance of her sold-out performance in NYFOS’s Lyrics by Shakespeare in the 2018 Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center. You received a Lifetime Achievement award at the 2018 Obies (Congratulations!) How does it feel to be honored for a ‘lifetime’ of work? What […]
Read MoreMadison Leonard, one of our most recent NYFOS@Caramoor Emerging Artists has had a big year! And now she answers our questions as Artist of the Month for May 2018.
Read MoreWe close our week of music inspired by Shakespeare with some advice from Cole Porter. Used in combination with a soft shoe number, it’s virtually guaranteed to help you secure a date for our next concert!
Read MoreWow, there are a lot of things on youtube when you search for Shakespeare! Lots of chaff and some interesting wheat, like this dreamy recording from 1977 of Three Shakespeare Songs (“Full Fathom Five”, “The Cloud-capp’d Towers”, and “Over Hill Over Dale”) by Ralph Vaughan Williams, sung by the vocal ensemble Swingle II.
Read MoreToday’s Shakespeare song moves a bit further from his actual words, with an adaptation of this famous scene from Hamlet. Hector Berlioz sets Ernest-Wilfrid Legouvé’s text depicting the death of Ophelia, here performed by Anne Sofie von Otter with Cord Garben at the piano.
Read MoreOf course, English-speakers were not the only ones inspired to set Shakespeare’s words. Composers around the world worked with his lyrics in their native tongues, and we’ll be featuring some ‘Lyrics by Shakespeare’ in Russian and French in our August concert. Today, however, let’s try German.
Read MoreIn anticipation of NYFOS’s program Lyrics by Shakespeare, performed on August 8 as part of Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival, we are featuring a week of songs inspired by Shakespeare on Song of the Day. Get your tickets today!
Read MoreMay’s Artist of the Month is the dynamic composer, pianist and vocalist Clarice Assad. Join her on Friday, May 4, when she curates and hosts a NYFOS Next evening focused on Brazilian song.
Read MoreIt’s almost Friday, but today is TBT – ‘throw back Thursday’. At first, I didn’t want to use my own recording but listening to the other few recordings on youtube of this song, I just wasn’t satisfied with the slightly slower tempo, and was forced to use my version.
Read MoreI have always been drawn to intimate musical communion, the concentrated communion of listeners and sounds. Likewise the heat generated by words and music heard in tandem—a lifelong obsession. Rhymes obsess me. Verbal elegance is a kind of religion for me. And obviously the piano-and-voice combination gives me a way to participate in this almost holy transmission of music and words to a listening audience.
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