New York Festival of Song Presents 'Love Songs in 176 Keys' at Kaufman Music Center, March 15

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

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

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KAUFMAN MUSIC CENTER AND
NEW YORK FESTIVAL OF SONG PRESENT
LOVE SONGS IN 176 KEYS:
4 HANDS, 4 VOICES, 4 COUNTRIES
AT KAUFMAN MUSIC CENTER ON MARCH 15

Featuring Caramoor’s 2022 Vocal Rising Stars in Love Songs
from Germany, Spain, France, and the United States
by Brahms, Fauré, Milhaud, Gershwin, and Others

Featured Artists Include Natalie Lewis, César Andrés Parreño,
Meredith Wohlgemuth, Seonho Yu, Francesco Barfoed, and
Bénédicte Jourdois

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

www.nyfos.org

February 2, 2022, New York, NY — New York Festival of Song (NYFOS), led by Artistic Director Steven Blier, continues its 2021-22 Mainstage Series with Love Songs in 176 Keys: 4 hands, 4 voices, 4 countries on Tuesday, March 15, 2022 at 8:00pm at Merkin Hall, co-presented by Kaufman Music Center. The concert features Caramoor’s 2022 Vocal Rising Stars, including mezzo-soprano Natalie Lewis, tenor César Andrés Parreño, soprano Meredith Wohlgemuth, baritone Seonho Yu, and pianist Francesco Barfoed, performing love songs from Germany, Spain, France, and the United States by Brahms, Fauré, Milhaud, Gershwin, and others. Each country’s “chapter” begins with a virtuoso duo-piano overture. Pianist Bénédicte Jourdois joins Steven Blier as co-director and pianist for the performance.

NYFOS’ 2021-22 season also includes additional Mainstage series concerts held at Merkin Hall at Kaufman Music Center: Buenos Aires, Then and Now on Tuesday, February 15, 2022 at 8:00pm with Nicoletta Berry, Federico De Michelis, Raquel González, Shawn Chang, and Steven Blier, 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, together with pianist Steven Blier.

This program is made possible by a generous grant from the Marta Heflin Foundation.

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
Love Songs in 176 Keys: 4 hands, 4 voices, 4 countries
March 15, 2022 at 8:00pm
Merkin Hall, Kaufman Music Center
Ticket Link: https://www.kaufmanmusiccenter.org/mch/event/new-york-festival-of-song-love-songs-in-176-keys-4-hands-4-voices-4-countries/

Caramoor’s 2022 Vocal Rising Stars
     Natalie Lewis, mezzo-soprano
     César Andrés Parreño, tenor
     Meredith Wohlgemuth, soprano
     Seonho Yu, baritone
     Francesco Barfoed, piano

Steven Blier, piano
Bénédicte Jourdois, piano

Program:
DVORÁK: Slavonic Dance No. 1, Opus 46
BRAHMS; Liebeslieder-Valzer, Opus 52
     Rede Mädchen
     Ein Kleiner, hübscher Vogel
     Vögelein durschrauscht die Luft
     Sieh, wie ist die Welle klar
     Nachtigall, sie singt so schön
     Nicht wandle, mein Licht
     Es bebet das Gesträuche

ALBÉNIZ: Andalucía
MORENO TORROBA: Caballero del alto plumero, from Luisa Fernanda
TOLDRÀ: Después que te conocí
GURIDI: Cómo quieres que adivine
TURINA: Al val de Fuenteovejuna
MONTSALVATGE: Paisatge de Montseny

BIZET: Le bal
POULENC:
     Colloque
     Tu vois le feu du soir
FAURÉ: Pleurs d’or
ROUSSEL: Sarabande
GAINSBOURG: La javanaise
MILHAUD: Caramel mou

GERSHWIN/GRAINGER: Bess, You Is My Woman Now
KAHANE: Merritt Parkway
ARTHUR SCHWARTZ: Make the Man Love Me
SONDHEIM: Pretty Women
CY COLEMAN: What You Don’t Know About Women
CORIGLIANO: Liebeslied

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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 Bénédicte Jourdois
Bénédicte Jourdois was born in Paris, France. She has worked at Marlena Malas’ voice program at the Chautauqua Institution since 2007, at the Castleton Festival since 2011, and Spoleto Festival USA from 2011-13. Jourdois has performed in numerous venues in Europe and in the U.S., including Alice Tully Hall, Carnegie Hall, and the Kennedy Center, and has worked in major North American opera houses such as the Pittsburgh Opera, Philadelphia Opera, and the Houston Grand Opera. She is a faculty member at the Curtis Institute and the Manhattan School of Music. She has worked as a guest coach at the Washington National Opera’s Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist Program. Jourdois holds degrees from Juilliard, the Conservatoire National de Région de Saint-Maur, the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Lyon, and Mannes College. She has been a Juilliard faculty member since 2014, and is currently on the musical staff of the Metropolitan Opera, where she was a graduate of their Lindemann Young Artist Development Program.

About Natalie Lewis
Lauded for her “velvet mezzo-soprano sonic cushion” (San Diego Story), Natalie Lewis is a capturing presence on stage. Natalie has dazzled audiences with her portrayal as The Dragonfly in Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortilège, The Third Lady in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte, and Marcellina in Le Nozze di Figaro by the same composer. In opera scenes, Natalie has sung excerpts of Dorabella, Lucretia, Malikà, and Frau Riech. Natalie has participated in numerous summer young artist programs including Houston Grand Opera’s Young Artists’ Vocal Academy, Opera Neo, and the American Institute for Music Studies in Graz, Austria where she performed solos with their festival orchestra twice and was part of their touring spirituals choir. A competitive singer, Natalie has placed first in the New England Regional NATS competition and the Nashoba Valley Choral’s Emerging Artist Competition and was awarded the Directors Award in the James Toland Vocal Competition. Natalie recently graduated with a BM in Vocal Performance from the University of Massachusetts: Amherst under the tutelage of William Hite receiving both the Howard Lebow Award for excellence in vocal performance as well as the Dorothy Ornest Award for her successes in academics. Natalie is currently pursuing her MM at Juilliard studying with Betsy Bishop and is a proud Kovner Fellow.  

About Cesar Andres Parreño
Native from Manabí, Ecuador, Tenor Cesar Andres Parreño started his voice studies with Beatriz Parra at Colegio de Artes Maria Callas. In 2016, Parreño performed as a soloist with the University of Cuenca’s Orchestra and with Guayaquil’s Symphonic Orchestra as a soloist. In the summer of 2019, Parreño performed his debut role as Lysander in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Chautauqua, New York. In early 2020, Parreño made his Peter Jay Sharp Theater debut in NYFOS@Juilliard’s Cubans in Paris and has performed in two other NYFOS concerts since. In 2021, Parreño covered the role of Nemorino in Juilliard’s production of L’elisir d’amore and made his soloist debut with the Juilliard Orchestra in Stravinsky’s Pulcinella conducted by Barbara Hannigan. This season, Parreño will perform his Peter Jay Sharp Theater opera debut as Momo in Luigi Rossi’s L’Orfeo and in early 2022, Parreño will star as Tom Rakewell in Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress, both productions with Juilliard Opera. In March 2022, Parreño will perform in Caramoor’s Schwab Rising Stars concert with Steven Blier and Bénédicte Jourdois, as well as making his Merkin Hall debut with the same program. This summer, Parreño will perform Le Remendado in Opera Theater of Saint Louis’ production of Carmen, as well as covering Dan White in their production of Stewart Wallace’s Harvey Milk. Later in the summer, Parreño will make his Aspen Music Festival debut as Dr. Caius in Verdi’s Falstaff. Cesar Andres Parreño is a first year graduate in Darrell Babidge’s studio at Juilliard, where he is the first Ecuadorian to ever attend the institution.

About Meredith Wohlgemuth
Meredith Wohlgemuth is an American Soprano, and recently completed her Master of Music in Vocal Arts at The Juilliard School and continues to study with Marlena Malas. In January 2022, Meredith was a part of Renée Fleming’s SongStudio and made her Carnegie Hall debut with pianist Pierre-Nicolas Colombat. In October 2021, Meredith was a winner in the New York District in the Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition, and also a finalist in the Young Concert Artists International Competition. In the 2020/2021 season, Meredith performed Gretel in Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel with Chautauqua Opera, and was a Resident Artist at Opera Naples where she performed Annina in Verdi’s La Traviata and A girl/Francisca in Bernstein’s West Side Story. In 2020, Meredith was a recipient of the Novick Career Advancement Grant and the Frank Huntington Beebe Fund Grant. She also premiered various new works virtually during the Pandemic, and became a member of the TOE Ensemble (That One Ensemble) in NYC, where they write and perform new music for various nonprofit organizations. For the remainder of the 2021/2022 season, Meredith will be performing various recitals in the Northeast with pianist Pierre-Nicolas Colombat, as well as competing in the Metropolitan Laffont Regional Competition in NYC, the Music International Grand Prix Semi-Finals, the Belvedere International Competition. She will also be a Vocal Fellow at Tanglewood Music Festival this coming summer.

About Seonho Yu
Baritone Seonho Yu, from Seoul, South Korea, is currently pursuing his Master of Music degree at The Juilliard School, studying with Marlena Malas. In previous seasons, Yu performed the role of Count Almaviva in Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro at Chautauqua Institution and in a Liederabend hosted by The Juilliard School. He is a graduate of Seoul National University (Bachelor of Music 2017) and Indiana University South Bend (Performer Diploma 2021). He has also been awarded prizes in the International Joseph Haydn Competition, Seoul Orchestra Competition, Italian Art Song Competition, Classical Music Magazine Competition, and Gimpo Philharmonic Orchestra Competition. 

About Francesco Barfoed
Francesco Barfoed is a Danish pianist, born and raised in Copenhagen. A young collaborative and solo artist on the rise, he is currently pursuing his master’s degree at The Juilliard School where he is a proud recipient of the Kovner Fellowship.

Francesco frequently collaborates with mezzo-soprano Megan Moore, and in the past year they won 1st prize in the Copenhagen Lied-Duo Competition 2021, 1st prize in the Young Concert Artists International Auditions, 2nd prize at the Naumberg International Vocal Competition, performed at Lincoln Center’s renowned Alice Tully Hall, and performed in masterclasses for artists like Renée Fleming and Malcolm Martineau.

An avid collaborator with both singers and instrumentalists alike, Francesco was awarded the prestigious Stern Fellowship for the 2020 SongFest in Los Angeles. He is also a member of the Wundertrio, a prize-winning piano trio that met at the Manchester Music Festival in Vermont in 2017. Francesco is on the coaching faculty at Saluzzo Opera Academy in Italy and teaches sight-reading for pianists at Juilliard.

In his already extensive career, Francesco has performed Rachmaninoff’s 1st Piano Concerto, as well as on the national Danish Radio (DR P2), in Italy and in Austria, and at various chamber music festivals across Denmark, including the Hindsgavl Festival.

Having won numerous awards, scholarships and grants, Francesco has completed two bachelor’s degrees, one at The Royal Danish Academy of Music and one at Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University, where he won the chamber music and concerto competitions.

Francesco is a passionate promoter of cultural exchange between Denmark and the United States. His studies in the U.S. have been supported by several prizes and scholarships from organizations like Denmark-America Foundation, Bikuben Foundation, and most notably the Victor Borge Scholarship, which is awarded to just one musician from Scandinavia each year. 

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