New York Festival of Song Presents “Buenos Aires, Then and Now” at Kaufman Music Center on February 15

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
BUENOS AIRES, THEN AND NOW
AT KAUFMAN MUSIC CENTER ON FEBRUARY 15

Featuring Nicoletta Berry, Federico De Michelis, Raquel González,
Steven Blier, and Shawn Chang in Argentinian Songs

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

www.nyfos.org

January 11, 2022, New York, NY — New York Festival of Song (NYFOS), led by Artistic Director Steven Blier, continues its 2021-22 Mainstage Series with Buenos Aires, Then and Now on Tuesday, February 15, 2022 at 8:00pm at Merkin Hall at Kaufman Music Center. The concert features soprano Nicoletta Berry, bass-baritone Federico De Michelis, soprano Raquel González, and others artists to be announced with pianist Shawn Chang and NYFOS Artistic Director Steven Blier serving as pianists and hosts.

The program honors the diverse musical culture of Buenos Aires and includes the works of its iconic masters, such as Guastavino, Ginastera, López Buchardo, Carlos Gardel, and Piazzolla, as well as its contemporary voices, Esteban Benzecry and Ezequiel Viñao. Buenos Aires, Then and Now is being produced with the collaboration of Jorge Parodi and Opera Hispánica.  

Buenos Aires, Then and Now, will be available online as part of the NYFOS@Home Digital Series, beginning on Tuesday, April 5 at 7pm ET for four weeks through May 3. Free access to the digital concert is available at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/buenos-aires-then-and-now-tickets-239173162367.

NYFOS’ 2021-22 season also includes additional Mainstage series concerts held at Merkin Hall at Kaufman Music Center, including 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 Lucia Bradford, Jorell Williams, and others to be announced.

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.

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Concert Information

Buenos Aires, Then and Now
Tuesday, February 15, 2022 at 8:00pm
Merkin Hall, Kaufman Music Center
Tickets: $20-70
Link: https://www.kaufmanmusiccenter.org/mch/event/new-york-festival-of-song-buenos-aires-then-and-now/

Nicoletta Berry, soprano
Federico De Michelis, bass-baritone
Raquel González, soprano
Steven Blier, pianist and host
Shawn Chang, pianist 

ASTOR PIAZZOLLA 
Michelangelo 70 (for duo-piano)
Libertango (for duo-piano)
Alguien le dice al tango (Borges)
Siempre se vuelve a Buenos Aires

LÓPEZ BUCHARDO
Vidalita
Jujeña
Frescas sombras de fresas

EZEQUIEL VIÑAO
El fuego es tu reino from “Sonetos de Amor”
Color de marfil from “Sonetos de Amor”

CARLOS GUASTAVINO 
Noches de Santa Fe
Abismo de sed

ARIEL RAMÍREZ
Alfonsina y el mar

ESTEBAN BENZECRY
Quiero ser
La noche

CARLOS GARDEL
Mi Buenos Aires querido

ALBERTO GINASTERA
Canción al árbol del olvido
Canción de la luna lunanca

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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, NYFOS has a rich discography including a Grammy Award-winning disc of Leonard 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 order to bring more of its music — captured both in live performance and in the studio — to audiences worldwide, NYFOS launched its in-house label, NYFOS Records, in 2021. Its first album, From Rags to Riches, featuring Stephanie Blythe, William Burden, and Steven Blier, is slated for release in January 2022. 

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 Nicoletta Berry
Soprano Nicoletta Berry is a dynamic performer passionate about the art of storytelling. Berry is pursuing her Master of Music at The Marcus Institute for Vocal Arts at The Juilliard School. This season, she will be performing the role of Clizia in Handel’s Teseo with the Juilliard Opera, and she will perform on the recital stage in Juilliard’s Liederabend series. She has performed the role of Tytania in Benjamin Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Chautauqua Institution, where she has also performed Kathie in Romberg’s The Student Prince, and Flora in Britten’s The Turn of the Screw. Berry is also dedicated to bringing composers from diverse backgrounds to the forefront. She was the Co-Artistic Director of Hear Them Now: Works by Composers from the African Diaspora, which premiered online in August 2020. Berry completed her undergraduate studies at the Manhattan School of Music. She made her NYFOS debut in Le Tour de France in March 2021.

About Federico De Michelis
Praised by Opera News for “singing with a deep-voiced authority”, Argentinian bass-baritone Federico De Michelis continues to debut with companies in both the United States and Europe. Recently, he made his Seattle Opera debut as Colline in Puccini’s beloved classic La bohème, a role he sang earlier in 2021 for his return to Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona. Other house debuts this season include the title role in Le nozze di Figaro with Virginia Opera and his Greensboro Symphony Orchestra debut in Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9.

In the 2019-2020 season, De Michelis made his role and house debut as Leporello in Don Giovanni at Florida Grand Opera, returned to Houston Grand Opera as Balthazar in Donizetti’s La Favorite, and, in the previous summer, he was scheduled at the New Generation Festival in Florence, Italy, as Don Magnifico in La Cenerentola (postponed due to covid). Concert highlights included performing at Opera Louisiane’s opening night gala and Handel’s Messiah with the North Carolina Symphony.

On the concert stage, De Michelis debuted with the Philadelphia Orchestra as Sciarrone in Tosca under the baton of Yannick Nézet-Séguin, sang Mozart’s Mass in C minor in his debut with the North Carolina Symphony, and presented a series of concerts in Key West, Florida, as part of the Florida Keys Concert Association. Internationally, he performed in a tour of Spain organized by the Fundación Albéniz, in a Christmas concert for the Royal Family of Spain at the Palacio Real de Madrid, and in concerts with the Nürnberger Symphoniker in Nürnberg and Zindorf, Germany.

Born in Buenos Aires, De Michelis received 3rd prize in the Eleanor McCollum Competition at Houston Grand Opera and was named “Outstanding Student” by Her Majesty Queen Sofía of Spain. Learn more at www.demichelisfederico.com.

About Raquel González
Hailed as a “true artist” (Opera News), soprano Raquel González recently completed three seasons as Young Artist with the Washington National Opera where she appeared in Madama Butterfly (Cio-Cio-San), Le nozze di Figaro (Contessa Almaviva), Don Giovanni (Donna Anna), Carmen (Micaëla), and La bohème (Mimì). Ms. González is also a winner of the prestigious Sphinx Organization’s Medal of Excellence Award.

In 21/22 Raquel debuts with Opera San Antonio in Don Giovanni (Donna Anna) and Virginia Opera in La bohème (Mimì), one of her signature roles. She will also appear with Queen City Opera in a concert of scenes from Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin and Iolanta.

Last season she made a role/house debut at Chicago Opera Theater in Rimsky-Korsakov’s Kashchej the Immortal (Princess) conducted by Lidiya Yankovskaya. Additionally, Raquel returned to Lyric Opera of Kansas City for La bohème (Mimì), joined the roster of the Lyric Opera of Chicago for Madama Butterfly, made her role/house debut at New Orleans Opera in Turandot (Liù), and returned to WNO for a role debut in Silent Night (Anna Sørensen). She debuted at North Carolina Opera in Carmen (Micaëla), Atlanta Opera to reprise the Zvulun production of Eugene Onegin (Tatyana), Opera Tampa in La bohème (Mimì), Opera on the James in La traviata (Violetta), and Central City Opera in Madama Butterfly (Cio-Cio-San).

Raquel made her hometown debut with Lyric Opera of Kansas City in a new production of Eugene Onegin (Tatyana) directed by Tomer Zvulun, performed with the National Symphony Orchestra in Bernstein’s Songfest, and returned to WNO for The Little Prince (Water). She sang her first Verdi Requiem with the West Virginia Symphony and Syracuse Symphoria. Ms. González debuted with Syracuse Opera in Eugene Onegin in 2016 – 2017 and returned the following season for La traviata. She sang her first Iolanta at Queen City Opera in Cincinnati and Carmen with the Washington Chorus at the Kennedy Center.

Ms. González debuted at The Glimmerglass Festival in their production of The Magic Flute (First Lady) before returning as a guest artist for La bohème. Additional assignments as a Young Artist at WNO included Hansel and Gretel (Sandman) and Dialogues of the Carmelites (Blanche cover). She also debuted with the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra in Otello (Desdemona). Learn more at www.raquelgonzalezsoprano.com. 

About Shawn Chang
Lauded for his recent performance of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 that “...emphasized the melodic, lyrical aspect of the work... It was a beautiful performance...” (The Riverdale Press), Taiwanese-American pianist and composer Shawn Chang has created an international career of distinction.

As a pianist, Chang was one of the 2020 Schwab Rising Stars of the Caramoor Music Festival in Katonah, New York. Chang appeared with pianist Steve Blier in a concert of Cuban music presented by the New York Festival of Song at the Peter Jay Sharp Theatre at Lincoln Center. Chang was the music director and arranger for Aya Aziz’s show Eh Dah? Questions for my Father (2016), which was a New York Musical Festival award winner. Future planned appearances include a recital with the Naumburg Vocal Competition winner mezzo soprano Erin Wagner at the Carnegie Weill Recital Hall.?

As a composer, Chang’s compositions have been premiered by the Chromatic Voice Exchange, Schola Sine Nomine, and the aTonal Hits Duo, to name a few. His piano arrangement of the Dutch folk song, tulpen uit Amsterdam received critical acclaim at the Prinsjesdagconcert in The Hague. His most recent song cycle, Portraits of Unrelated Colors, experiments with writing text and music simultaneously and uses colors and American landscapes as symbols for various emotional journeys. Learn more at http://www.shawnchangcomposer.com 

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