New York Festival of Song Presents And...We're Back! at Kaufman Music Center on November 16

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:
Katlyn Morahan
Morahan Arts and Media
katlyn@morahanartsandmedia.com
(646) 378-9386

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NEW YORK FESTIVAL OF SONG PRESENTS
AND...WE’RE BACK! AT KAUFMAN MUSIC CENTER ON NOVEMBER 16

Featuring Paul Appleby, Amanda Lynn Bottoms,
Rebecca Jo Loeb, Johnathan McCullough, and Maggie Reneé in
Works by Schubert, Mahler, Glen Hansard, and More

“insightful and imaginative, touching and funny” —The New York Times

www.nyfos.org

September 30, 2021, New York, NY — New York Festival of Song (NYFOS), led by Artistic Director Steven Blier, presents And...We’re Back!, the first of four Mainstage Series performances in its 2021-22 season, on Tuesday, November 16, 2021 at 8:00pm at Merkin Hall at Kaufman Music Center.

The program celebrates the return of live music to our city, while reflecting back on some of the songs that gave us strength during the pandemic. The evening's playlist ranges from Franz Schubert and Gustav Mahler to Antônio Jobim and Glen Hansard, and also includes music from Israel, Cuba, and Russia. NYFOS Artistic Director Steven Blier is the pianist and arranger. The concert additionally features tenor Paul Appleby, mezzo-soprano Amanda Lynn Bottoms, mezzo-soprano Rebecca Jo Loeb, baritone Johnathan McCullough, and mezzo-soprano Maggie Reneé.

All Mainstage Series shows will be filmed and edited into shortened digital programs, which will premiere after the live performance and remain online for four weeks.

Subscriptions ($260 and $160) to the Mainstage Series and single tickets ($20-70; $10 student tickets) are now on-sale through the Kaufman Center Box Office. 

NYFOS’ 2021-22 season continues with three more Mainstage series concerts held at Merkin Hall at Kaufman Music Center, including Buenos Aires, Then and Now on Tuesday, February 15, 2022 at 8:00pm with Nicoletta Berry, Raquel González, Brian James Myer and pianist Joseph Li; Love Songs in 176 Keys: 4 hands, 4 voices, 4 countries on Tuesday, March 15, 2022 at 8:00pm with Caramoor’s 2022 Vocal Rising Stars; and The Wider View: Songs by Black Composers on Wednesday, April 13, 2022 at 8:00pm with Aundi Marie Moore, Lucia Bradford, and others to be announced. NYFOS additionally presents its two 2021 NYFOS Next Festival performances: 9 UNDER 34: Composers Younger Than NYFOS on Friday, October 22, 2021 at 7:00pm with Gregory Feldmann, Erin Wagner, Nathaniel LaNasa, Shawn Chang, and Thapelo Masita, and A Tribute to James Primosch on Monday, November 1, 2021 at 7:00pm with Lucy Fitz Gibbon, Daniel McGrew, and Ryan MacEvoy McCullough. NYFOS’ annual holiday show, A Goyishe Christmas to You! is held on December 6, 2021 with Donna Breitzer, Cantor Joshua Breitzer, Joshua Jeremiah, Rebecca Jo Loeb, Alex Mansoori, and Lauren Worsham. 

All NYFOS programming is funded, in part, by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature.

NYFOS Mainstage is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

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Concert Information

And...We’re Back!
Tuesday, November 16, 2021 at 8:00pm
Merkin Hall at Kaufman Music Center | 129 W 67th St | New York, NY 10023
Tickets: Starting at $20
Link: http://nyfos.org/21-22season/#mainstage

Paul Appleby, tenor
Amanda Lynn Bottoms, mezzo-soprano
Rebecca Jo Loeb, mezzo-soprano
Johnathan McCullough, baritone
Maggie Reneé, mezzo-soprano
Steven Blier, piano

GLEN HANSARD: Song of Good Hope
JOHN MUSTO: Litany
ANTÔNIO JOBIM: Chega de saudade
JONI MITCHELL: Cactus Tree
CHAIM BARKANI/LEAH GOLDBERG: At telchi basadeh
PYOTR BULAKHOV/VLADIMIR CHUYEVSKY: Gori, Gori Moya Zvezda? (Shine, Shine My Star)
CARL T. FISCHER/FRANKIE LAINE: We’ll Be Together Again
ERROLYN WALLEN: my feet may take a little while
ELISEO GRENET: Lamento esclavo by Eliseo Grenet
GUSTAV MAHLER/FRIEDRICH RÜCKERT: Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen
FRANZ SCHUBERT/AUGUST SCHLEGEL: Abendlied für die Entfernte
DAVID RASKIN: Theme from The Bad and the Beautiful
ROBERT LOWRY/arranged by DAVID KRANE: How Can I Keep from Singing

The Mainstage Series is co-presented by Merkin Hall at Kaufman Music Center and the New York Festival of Song.

Attendees at Kaufman Music Center are currently required to wear masks and provide proof of vaccination. View the current COVID policy at https://www.kaufmanmusiccenter.org/covid/.

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About New York Festival of Song
Now in its 34th season, New York Festival of Song (NYFOS) is dedicated to creating intimate song concerts of great beauty and originality. Weaving music, poetry, history and humor into evenings of compelling theater, NYFOS fosters community among artists and audiences. Each program entertains and educates in equal measure.  

Founded by pianists Michael Barrett and Steven Blier in 1988, NYFOS continues to produce its series of thematic song programs, drawing together rarely-heard songs of all kinds, overriding traditional distinctions between musical genres, exploring the character and language of other cultures, and the personal voices of song composers and lyricists.

Since its founding, NYFOS has particularly celebrated American song. Among the many highlights is the double bill of one-act comic operas, Bastianello and Lucrezia, by John Musto and William Bolcom, both with libretti by Mark Campbell, commissioned and premiered by NYFOS in 2008 and recorded on Bridge Records. In addition to Bastianello and Lucrezia and the 2008 Bridge Records release of Spanish Love Songs with Joseph Kaiser and the late Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, NYFOS has produced five recordings on the Koch label, including a Grammy Award-winning disc of Bernstein’s Arias and Barcarolles, and the Grammy-nominated recording of Ned Rorem’s Evidence of Things Not Seen (also a NYFOS commission) on New World Records. In 2014, Canción Amorosa, a CD of Spanish song—Basque, Catalan, Castilian, and Sephardic—was released on the GPR label, with soprano Corinne Winters accompanied by Steven Blier.

In November 2010, NYFOS debuted NYFOS Next, a mini-series for new songs, hosted by guest composers in intimate venues, including OPERA America's National Opera Center, National Sawdust, the DiMenna Center for Classical Music, and now the Ann Goodman Recital Hall at Kaufman Music Center.

NYFOS is passionate about nurturing the artistry and careers of young singers, and has developed training residencies around the country, including with The Juilliard School’s Ellen and James S. Marcus Institute for Vocal Arts (now in its 16th year); Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts (its 14th year in March 2022); San Francisco Opera Center (over 20 years as of February 2018); Glimmerglass Opera (2008–2010); and its newest project, NYFOS@North Fork in Orient, NY.

NYFOS’s concert series, touring programs, radio broadcasts, recordings, and educational activities continue to spark new interest in the creative possibilities of the song program, and have inspired the creation of thematic vocal series around the world.

About Steven Blier
Steven Blier is the Artistic Director of the New York Festival of Song (NYFOS), which he co-founded in 1988 with Michael Barrett. Since the Festival’s inception, he has programmed, performed, translated and annotated more than 140 vocal recitals with repertoire spanning the entire range of American song, art song from Schubert to Szymanowski, and popular song from early vaudeville to Lennon-McCartney. NYFOS has also made in-depth explorations of music from Spain, Latin America, Scandinavia and Russia. New York Magazine gave NYFOS its award for Best Classical Programming, while Opera News proclaimed Blier “the coolest dude in town” and in December 2014, Musical America included him as one of 30 top industry professionals in their feature article, “Profiles in Courage.”

Mr. Blier enjoys an eminent career as an accompanist and vocal coach. His recital partners have included Renée Fleming, Cecilia Bartoli, Samuel Ramey, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, Susan Graham, Jessye Norman, and José van Dam, in venues ranging from Carnegie Hall to La Scala. He is also on the faculty of The Juilliard School and has been active in encouraging young recitalists at summer programs, including the Wolf Trap Opera Company, the Steans Institute at Ravinia, Santa Fe Opera, and the San Francisco Opera Center. Many of his former students, including Stephanie Blythe, Joseph Kaiser, Sasha Cooke, Paul Appleby, Dina Kuznetsova, Corinne Winters, Julia Bullock, and Kate Lindsey, have gone on to be valued recital colleagues and sought-after stars on the opera and concert stage. In keeping the traditions of American music alive, he has brought back to the stage many of the rarely heard songs of George Gershwin, Harold Arlen, Kurt Weill and Cole Porter. He has also played ragtime, blues and stride piano evenings with John Musto. A champion of American art song, he has premiered works of John Corigliano, Paul Moravec, Ned Rorem, William Bolcom, Mark Adamo, John Musto, Richard Danielpour, Tobias Picker, Robert Beaser, Lowell Liebermann, Harold Meltzer, and Lee Hoiby, many of which were commissioned by NYFOS.

Mr. Blier’s extensive discography includes the premiere recording of Leonard Bernstein’s Arias and Barcarolles (Koch International), which won a Grammy Award; Spanish Love Songs (Bridge Records), recorded live at the Caramoor International Music Festival with Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, Joseph Kaiser, and Michael Barrett; the world premiere recording of Bastianello (John Musto) and Lucrezia (William Bolcom), a double bill of one-act comic operas set to librettos by Mark Campbell; and Quiet Please, an album of jazz standards with vocalist Darius de Haas. His latest release is Canción amorosa, a CD of Spanish songs with soprano Corinne Winters. His writings on opera have been featured in Opera News and the Yale Review. A native New Yorker, he received a Bachelor’s Degree with Honors in English Literature at Yale University, where he studied piano with Alexander Farkas. He completed his musical studies in New York with Martin Isepp and Paul Jacobs.

About Paul Appleby
Admired for his interpretive depth, vocal strength, and range of expressivity, tenor Paul Appleby is one of the most sought-after voices of his generation. Mr. Appleby’s recent engagements include performances of John Adams’ Girls of the Golden West with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, productions of Candide at the Grand Théâtre de Genève, and Die Zauberflöte at the Glyndebourne Festival. Previous seasons included his debuts at the Houston Grand Opera as Jonathan in Saul and at the Teatro Real as Tamino in Die Zauberflöte, as well as a performance of Schumann’s Dichterliebe under the auspices of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. 

Further highlights of recent engagements include concert performances of Die Zauberflöte and Mozart’s seldom heard Laut verkunde unsre with Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic; Handel’s Samson with the Dunedin Consort at the Edinburgh International Festival; Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius with the Bamberger Symphoniker; Berlioz’s Béatrice et Bénédict at the Palais Garnier with the orchestra and chorus of the Opéra de Paris under the direction of Philippe Jordan; and on numerous occasions in North America and Europe with his frequent musical partner Manfred Honeck. Respected as a consummate recital artist, Paul Appleby has given solo appearances at Wigmore Hall with Malcolm Martineau and has toured North America extensively with pianists Natalia Katyukova and Ken Noda.

Mr. Appleby is a founding member of the American Modern Opera Company (AMOC), where he will be featured this season at the Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts and The Kennedy Center. He is a graduate of the Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program. A recipient of an Artist Diploma in Opera Studies at The Juilliard School, he also earned a Master’s Degree from Juilliard and a Bachelor’s Degree in English Literature and in Music from the University of Notre Dame. Learn more at www.paulapplebytenor.com.

About Amanda Lynn Bottoms
Praised for her “superb vocal and dramatic chops” (Opera News) and “captivating” artistry (Huffington Post), Amanda Lynn Bottoms, mezzo-soprano, is a current member of the Cafritz Young Artist Program at the Washington National Opera. She was featured at Santa Fe Opera this past summer as an Apprentice Singer, covering the roles of Hermia in A Midsummer Night's Dream, Fillipveyna in Eugene Onegin and Ino in the world premiere of John Coriliagno’s The Lord of Cries.

A graduate of the Curtis Institute, The Juilliard School, and SUNY Fredonia, Ms. Bottoms has broad experience performing and teaching opera, art song, pop, and musical theatre. An active performer world-wide, her mainstage work this season includes debuts with LA Opera, Collaborative Arts Institute of Chicago and several returns to the New York Festival of Song concert series. Last season’s work included her debut as Strawberry Woman in Francesca Zambello’s Porgy & Bess (COVID-19 Postponed), the Maurice Sendak production of Die Zauberflöte, Menotti’s The Consul, the world premiere of Castor and Patience with Cincinnati Opera (COVID-19 postponed) and the world premiere of Michael Lanci’s Admissions.

Ms. Bottoms debuted in the fall of 2019 with Opera Philadelphia as part of the O19 Festival, performing the role of Smeraldina in Prokofiev’s The Love for Three Oranges and returned to headline the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society Emerging Voices Recital Series in the winter. Ms. Bottoms has been a finalist in prestigious international competitions including the George London Foundation, Zachary Foundation, Operalia, and the Metropolitan Opera National Council Regionals.

About Rebecca Jo Loeb
Hailed as “a theatrical performer whose rise to watch” by Opera News, Rebecca Jo Loeb recently made debuts with the Teatro Municipal de Santiago reprising Gymnasiast/ein Groom in Lulu and Theater Freiburg as Susan in Weill’s Love Life. Her other engagements include her return to the Deutsche Oper Berlin as Zweite Magd in Elektra and New York Festival of Song for Arias and Barcarolles on tour to Arizona Opera and Wolf Trap. She made debuts with the Metropolitan Opera as Flora in La traviata and Oper Köln as The Fox in The Cunning Little Vixen. 

In concert, Rebecca has performed with the Hamburg Ballet as the Alto in both Handel’s Messiah and Bach’s St. Johannes Passion, with the CPE Bach Chor as the Alto Soloist in Bach’s Markus-Passion, and as a soloist in her concert series The Jenny and Johnny Project at both the Kurt Weill Festival in Dessau and the Brecht Festival in Augsburg, Germany. She has joined James Conlon in a concert performance of Mahagonny Sonspiel at the Ravinia Festival and has sung Mendelssohn ´s Midsummer Night’s Dream with the New York City Ballet, the Alto and Second Soprano Soloist in Bach ´s Mass in B minor at Carnegie Hall, and made her Alice Tully Hall debut singing Bolcom ´s acclaimed Cabaret Songs with orchestra. 

Her awards include a Sullivan Educational Award, the Curt Englehorn Scholarship from the Opera Foundation, first prize in the Lotte Lenya Competition, a 2009 Career Bridges grant, and the Ginney and John Starkey Young Artist Award at Central City Opera. She is a proud graduate of the Juilliard School, The Manhattan School of Music, and especially the University of Michigan, from which she received the Stanley Medal.

About Johnathan McCullough
Baritone Johnathan McCullough recently premiered his production of David T. Little’s Soldier Songs which marks his directorial and role debut. The film was made in collaboration with producer James Darrah and Freshfly Media and is currently streaming on the Opera Philadelphia Channel. This season he makes company debuts at Intermountain Opera Bozeman singing Figaro in The Barber of Seville, Marco in Gianni Schicchi with Tulsa Opera as well as a role and house debut with Portland opera singing The Masque in Anthony Davis’ The Central Park Five. He closes out the season returning to Opera Theatre of Saint Louis signing Papageno in a new production directed by Omer Ben Seadia. Last season he made his UK and West End debut singing Il Conte in a new production of Le nozze di Figaro directed by Joe Hill-Gibbons at English National Opera. He won First Prize in the 2019 Gerda Lissner Foundation Song competition singing Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen. This past season, Johnathan was selected by Renée Fleming to take part in the Weill Institute Song Studio at Carnegie Hall where he performed in concert.

Johnathan discovered his love of opera in LA Opera's Community and Education program where he returned in 2010 and 2012 to sing the roles of Messenger and Noble in the Los Angeles Opera production of The Festival Play of Daniel at the Los Angeles Cathedral. Johnathan was also part of the 2012 Young Artist Vocal Academy summer program at Houston Grand Opera where he returned in 2016 to cover the title role in the world premiere of Carlisle Floyd’s Prince of Players. He is a recipient of the Partners for the Arts First Prize in the Promising Young Artist Category, second place in the Mario Lanza Voice Competition, the Bel canto vocal scholarship, a 2013 Career Bridges grant and a 2012 George London Foundation Encouragement Award. 

He received a Bachelor of Music degree, Master of Music in Opera degree and Artist Diploma, all from the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. He has been a Young Artist at the Glimmerglass Festival, the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, and the Aspen Music Festival. Learn more at https://mcculloughbaritone.com/.

About Maggie Reneé
American mezzo-soprano Maggie Reneé, a Metropolitan Opera National Council Regional Encouragement Winner and a winner of the California Philharmonic Young Artist Award, "possesses a luscious and deep sound" (Opera Wire) and is a "suavely forthright and impressive mezzo" (Parterre Box). "A singer to keep your eye on" (California Philharmonic), Reneé has a strong appreciation for all musical genres and sings in 8 languages, writes her own music, has a black belt in Karate, and entertains more than 170K of her subscribers and hundreds of thousands of viewers on her YouTube channel daily. Reneé graduated with Honors from The Juilliard School, where she is currently a Gluck Fellow, a recipient of the Burford Scholarship, Pauline and Arthur Feibush Memorial Scholarship, F. Heiligenstein Scholarship and Tatiana Troyanos Scholarship and is currently pursuing her Master's degree there.

For the 2021-2022 season, Maggie Reneé will sing Baba the Turk in Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress, sing Un Récitante in Claude Debussy's La Damoiselle élue under the baton of Maestro Barbara Hannigan at Lincoln Center, cover the Mezzo role in Pulcinella, perform in Chamber Music Ensemble and at the New York Festival of Song (NYFOS), sing at the Metropolitan Opera Guild's Baroque Master Class and premiere new music at the FOCUS Festival at Lincoln Center.

Maggie Reneé had her European debut in 2017, where, at 18 years old, she debuted the role of Cherubino in Berlin Opera Festival's fully staged opera production of Le nozze di Figaro in Berlin, Germany. In 2014, Maggie Reneé released her first pop album of her original music called "Craziest Feelings" and is currently working on her second album. Learn more at www.maggierenee.com/home.

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