New York Festival of Song Presents Eros and Co.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
PR Contact: Katlyn Morahan | Morahan Arts and Media
katlyn@morahanartsandmedia.com | (646) 378-9386

NEW YORK FESTIVAL OF SONG PRESENTS
EROS AND CO. MARCH 19

 Featuring Caramoor’s 2024 Schwab Vocal Rising Stars in
Songs by Schubert, Wolf, Poulenc, Porter, and More

www.nyfos.org

New York, NY (February 12, 2024) — New York Festival of Song (NYFOS), led by Artistic Director Steven Blier, concludes its 2023-24 Mainstage season with Eros and Co., on Tuesday, March 19, 2024 at 8:00 p.m. at Merkin Hall featuring Caramoor’s 2024 Schwab Vocal Rising Stars in the culmination of their weeklong immersive mentorship and training program focusing on the art of song.

Now in its sixteenth year, the annual weeklong residency taking place at Caramoor includes daily coaching, rehearsals and workshops with Steven Blier and guest teaching artists. Notable alumni of the program include soprano Julia Bullock, tenor Paul Appleby, soprano Corinne Winters, baritone John Brancy, soprano Joélle Harvey, baritone Theo Hoffman, and many more.

NYFOS welcomes guest artists soprano Shan Hai, mezzo-soprano Sophia Baete, tenor Scott Rubén La Marca, baritone Michael Hawk, and pianist Amber Scherer in songs that promise to refract the chaos and the delight of Cupid’s arrow, including works by Saint-Saëns, Granados, Serge Gainsbourg, Sondheim, and more. Residency artistic directors Steven Blier and Bénédicte Jourdois will join them as pianists and hosts.

“It all began when the pianist and coach Bénédicte Jourdois, my collaborator for NYFOS’s annual residency at Caramoor, sent me a rather salacious song by the French chansonnier Serge Gainsbourg,” remarks Steven Blier. ““Why don’t we base a whole program around this song?” I fired back. “We can call it Eros & Co. There must be a ton of material about the god of love. “And his mom, Venus,” she answered. Well, of course there is—fabulous art songs by Granados, Strauss, and Milhaud, lighter fare by Sam Cooke and Cole Porter, theater songs and jazz tunes. Obviously, we would need a quartet of singers who could run the gamut from bold to sensual, and a dextrous, versatile pianist. Our prayers were granted (what a superb group of musicians we found) and we’re all looking forward to our precious week with the Schwab Vocal Rising Stars Program. As for that Gainsbourg song… actually, we cut it early on, after thanking it for inspiring what promises to be a barn-burner of a concert.”

A preview performance takes place on Sunday, March 17, 2024 at 3:00 p.m. at the Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts.

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.

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

Concert Information
EROS AND CO. PREVIEW PERFORMANCE
Sunday, March 17, 2024 at 3:00 p.m.
Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts | 149 Girdle Ridge Road | Katonah, NY 10536
Tickets: $30-$42
Link: https://caramoor.org/event/schwab-vocal-rising-stars-spring-2024/ 

EROS AND CO.
Tuesday, March 19, 2024 at 8:00 p.m.
Merkin Hall at Kaufman Music Center | 129 W 67th St | New York, NY 10023
Tickets: $20-$70
Link: https://nyfos.org/eros/ 

Program:
Anakreon/trans. Robert Herrick – Wounded Cupid
     The Ensemble
Ned Rorem – Love
     Scott Rubén La Marca
Franz Schubert – Die Liebesgötter
     Shan Hai, Scott Rubén La Marca
arr. Ludwig van Beethoven – Cupid’s Kindness
     Sophia Baete, Michael Hawk
Hugo Wolf – Ganymed
     Scott Rubén La Marca
Eduardo Toldrà – Madre unos ojuelitos vi
     Sophia Baete
Fernando Obradors – Al amor
     Shan Hai
Francis Poulenc – L’offrande and La belle jeunesse
     Michael Hawk
Darius Milhaud – A Cupidon
     Shan Hai
André Messager – J’ai deux amants
     Scott Rubén La Marca
Max D’Ollone – L’enfant Eros
     Sophia Baete
Richard Strauß – Amor
     Shan Hai
Enrique Granados – Amor y odio
     Michael Hawk
Carlos López-Buchardo – Los puñalitos
     Scott Rubén La Marca
Enrique Granados – Mañanica era
     Shan Hai
Sam Cooke – Cupid
     Sophia Baete
Cole Porter – They Couldn’t Compare to You
     Michael Hawk, the Ensemble
John Dankworth – Tell Me the Truth About Love
     The Ensemble

Program subject to change

Artists:
Shan Hai, soprano
Sophia Baete, mezzo-soprano
Scott Rubén La Marca, tenor
Michael Hawk, baritone
Amber Scherer, piano
Steven Blier, piano
Bénédicte Jourdois, piano 

About New York Festival of Song
Now in its 36th 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.

Their latest endeavor is NYFOS Records, which released its first album (From Rags to Riches, with Stephanie Blythe and William Burden) in January of 2022. Three more CDs have followed: Picnic Cantata (by Paul Bowles and James Schuyler); Black and Blue (with tenor Joshua Blue); and Mi país: Songs of Argentina (with bass-baritone Federico De Michelis). They also frequently issue singles, with archival performances by artists such as Lorraine Hunt Lieberson and Bernarda Fink, and newly recorded songs by Joshua Blue and Sasha Cooke. NYFOS Records has reached rapidly growing audiences in over 100 countries, with over a million streams in the past twelve months. 

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, the Ann Goodman Recital Hall at Kaufman Music Center, and now the Rubin Museum in Chelsea.

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 18th year); Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts (its 16th year in March 2024); San Francisco Opera Center (over 20 years); 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 150 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 Michael Spyres, 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  Julia Bullock, Stephanie Blythe, Sasha Cooke, Paul Appleby, Dina Kuznetsova, Corinne Winters, 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; Quiet Please, an album of jazz standards with vocalist Darius de Haas, and Canción amorosa, a CD of Spanish songs with soprano Corinne Winters. His latest release is Mi País: Songs of Argentina with baritone Federico De Michelis, on NYFOS Records. 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. Mr. Blier is a Yamaha Artist.

About The Terrance W. Schwab Vocal Rising Stars Program at Caramoor
Since its inception in 2009, the Schwab Vocal Rising Stars has received vital funding from the Terrance W. Schwab Endowment Fund for Young Vocal Artists. Created in memory of former Caramoor Trustee Terrance W. Schwab by his family, the fund was established to nurture and support the artistic development of young vocalists who are on the verge of their professional careers through participation in an intensive week-long residency at Caramoor.

The Vocal Rising Stars program has a specialized focus on providing young singers with an opportunity to form collaborative partnerships with one another, the Caramoor staff, and the coach/accompanists who also participate in the residency that includes daily coaching, rehearsals, and workshops. In the program, the work is of equal importance to the performances, and has had a lasting impact on the growth and development of the artists involved. Past graduates of this program—including Joélle Harvey, Paul Appleby, John Brancy, Julia Bullock, Miles Mykkanen, Brenton Ryan, Andrew Owens, Corinne Winters, and Theo Hoffman—are now enjoying busy international careers.

About Hai Shan
Shan Hai, a native of Beijing, China, is garnering international attention, praised for her “remarkably accomplished vocalism with bright, accurate coloratura runs and genuine trills” (Opera News). Hai makes her debut with NYFOS this season after attending the prestigious Merola Opera Program at the San Francisco Opera, performing excerpts from Ambroise Thomas’ Hamlet as Ophélie and Mozart’s Don Giovanni as Zerlina. A graduate of the Manhattan School of Music and the Chautauqua Opera Conservatory, her operatic repertoire also includes Susanna in Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro, Eurydice in Offenbach’s Orpheus in the Underworld, Le Feu in Ravel’s L’enfant et les Sortilèges, and Romilda in Handel’s Xerxes. Hai won first place in the Ades Vocal Competition, the Eisenberg-Fried Concerto Competition with the MSM Symphonic Orchestra, and prizes from Opera Index, the Gerda Lissner Lieder/Song Competition, and the Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition.

About Sophia Baete
Mezzo-soprano Sophia Baete, from Louisville, Kentucky, is a fourth-year undergraduate Vocal Arts Student at The Juilliard School, where she studies under Darrell Babidge. Baete has attended intensive programs including Houston Grand Opera’s Young Artist’s Vocal Academy, the Chautauqua Institution, and Boston University’s Tanglewood Institute. She received First Place at the Schmidt Undergraduate Vocal Competition in both lower and upper divisions. Most recently, Baete has been seen on stage as Signora Guidotti in Juilliard Opera’s I due timidi, as a Resident Artist with New York Festival of Song, and as La Suora Zelatrice in Juilliard Opera’s Suor Angelica. She is a delighted member of the Denyce Graves Foundation Shared Voices Program. She is honored to have been selected as a 2024 Gerdine Young Artist at the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, and she is also immensely proud to be a Jerome L. Greene Fellow at The Juilliard School.

About Scott Rubén La Marca 
Scott Rubén La Marca is a tenor based in New York City. His recent operatic roles have included Ismael in Jimmy López Bellido’s Bel Canto and Trojan Man in Mozart’s Idomeneo, both performed at the Aspen Music Festival. This past December, he made his role debut as Contino Belfiore in Mozart’s La finta giardiniera, with musical direction led by Djordje Nesic, at the Manhattan School of Music. This spring, he will make his role debut as ein soldat in Der Kaiser von Atlantis by Viktor Ullmann. His other credits include the Italian man in Angélique by Jacques Ibert with Manhattan School of Music’s Opera Theater, under the baton of Pierre Vallet and the stage direction of John de los Santos. He has also performed as Liverotto in New Amsterdam Opera’s production of Donizetti’s Lucrezia Borgia; Gastone in Verdi’s La Traviata with The Lighthouse Opera Company; and Camille in Franz Lehár’s The Merry Widow with Queens College Opera.

About Michael Hawk
Michael J. Hawk is a Resident Artist at Seattle Opera and former Young Artist at Los Angeles Opera. His repertoire spans both the dramatic and comedic roles of Mozart, Verdi, Wagner, and contemporary composers alike. Hawk has performed with many world-renowned singers including Bryn Terfel, Susan Graham, Greer Grimsley, Quinn Kelsey, Erin Morley, Angela Meade, and many more, on the stages of Santa Fe Opera, Los Angeles Opera, Seattle Opera, Wolf Trap Opera, and the Aspen Music Festival. This summer he will perform the roles of Guglielmo in Così fan tutte and Big Jule in Guys and Dolls with Opera Saratoga. Next season at Seattle Opera, Hawk will sing Silvio in the opening night production of Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci, Der Sprecher in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte, and he will cover the roles of Sacristan and Scarpia in Puccini’s Tosca.

About Amber Scherer
Amber Scherer is a Korean-German pianist and educator. In May 2021, she graduated from Oberlin College and Conservatory with degrees in psychology and piano performance. Currently, she is pursuing a Master’s Degree in Collaborative Piano at The Juilliard School, studying with Jonathon Feldman and Lydia Brown. Scherer is a recipient of the 2022 Segal Education Award from the U.S. Department of Education. Most recently, she worked as staff pianist and assistant coach at Chautauqua Institution and Harpa International Music Festivals. She has attended various programs on fellowship, including SongFest, the Colorado College Summer Music Festival, and The Cleveland Orchestra’s Kent-Blossom Music Festival. She hopes to expand access to arts education while she continues to study music therapy and develop her career as a performing artist.

Image at top of release by Whitney Browne 

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