New York Festival Of Song Presents 16th Annual NYFOS Next Festival

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

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New York Festival Of Song Presents 
16th Annual NYFOS Next Festival 

Acclaimed Series for New Song Returns on October 5
Featuring Sharon Harms, Emily Finke, Devony Smith, and
Gregory Feldmann; Additional Concerts on November 16 and
June 2026 at The Theater at 150 W 17

www.nyfos.org

August 27, 2025 (New York, NY) — New York Festival of Song (NYFOS), led by Artistic Director Steven Blier, kicks off its 2025-2026 season with the 16th annual NYFOS Next Festival on Sunday, October 5, 2025 at 3:00 p.m. at The Theater at 150 W 17. The festival, curated by Nathaniel LaNasa, features a trio of concerts celebrating new song interspersed throughout the season.

“I've been on the hunt for songs that pull at loose threads, and songs that embrace bewilderment,” shares curator Nathaniel LaNasa. “What a delight it has been to get to know these composers' diverse ways of bridging distance with sound. I'm especially excited to welcome this stellar cast of singers, each of whom can create a whole world in just one phrase. All three programs have at least one work written expressly for the singer performing it, and our season culminates in the presentation of our three Luna Lab premieres, the first commissioning project that I've had the opportunity to co-create with NYFOS.”

The first NYFOS Next concert is an afternoon in thrall to uncrossable distances, taking its name from Christopher Trapani’s lushly resonant song cycle on prose by Rebecca Solnit, The color of where you can never go. Commissioned through the Barlow Prize and performed by soprano Sharon Harms in her NYFOS debut, the songs give voice to what Solnit describes as “that melancholy wonder that is the blue of distance.” 

The program also includes Amelia Brey’s indignant Eurydice, based on an unfinished 1916 poem by H.D., and Sofia Rocha’s aching The River, both exploring the pain of impossible returns. Eve Beglarian’s weightless Dream Amid Bed-woods offers a warning not to give in to the seductions of a lushly described “orchard dormitory,” while her meditation Peace invites stillness even amid the knowledge of “another valley.”

Vast distances between intimates animates Herschel Garfein’s A Tuesday Spot and Shawn Chang’s Blue, a humorous confessional that traverses the wastelands and dead ends of social media. Soprano Emily Finke also makes her NYFOS debut, and is joined by baritone Gregory Feldmann and mezzo-soprano Devony Smith.

“An art song recital is the last place remaining for an audience to hear an unamplified singer in an intimate setting; as such, it always has a whiff of the 19th century about it,” said CadenzaNYC in a recent review. “But NYFOS Next, the venerable New York Festival of Song’s new music series, showed…that the ancient form is alive and very much kicking in the hands of the current generation of practitioners.”

The NYFOS Next series continues with The Many Worlds Interpretation, a program that takes playful aim at tellings and retellings of our self-narratives on Sunday, November 16, 2025 at 3:00 p.m. Composer and pianist Michael Stephen Brown performs his own Love's Lives Lost together with soprano Susanna Phillips for the work’s New York premiere; plus Kimberly Osberg's wistful You, Us, Me mourns an “us” that never had room for “me,” and Sarah Gibson’s Breath’d back again remixes poems of Thomas Moore to unmoor stories of our own anguish in “endless space.” 

In June 2026, NYFOS Next’s latest collaboration presents a meditation on possibility and impossibility in The Same River Twice, featuring three world premieres of new songs by Luna Composition Lab alumni Elisa Johnson, Alicia Erlandson, and Devon Lee, commissioned by NYFOS and celebrating the tenth anniversary of Luna Lab’s founding. Soprano Jennifer Zetlan and mezzo-soprano Kelly Guerra will work closely with these young composers on works written for their voices, and the program will be filled out by selections from Luna Lab’s roster of superstar mentors.

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 and the NYFOS Next series are 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:

NYFOS Next: The color of where you can never go
Sunday, October 5, 2025 at 3:00 p.m.
The Theater at 150 W 17 | 150 W 17th St | New York, NY 10011
Tickets: Single tickets on sale September 1, 2025
Link: https://nyfos.org/nyfos-next/ 

Program:
Christopher Trapani - The Color of Where You Can Never Go
Amelia Brey - Eurydice
Eve Beglarian - Dream Amid Bed-woods
Herschel Garfein - A Tuesday Spot
Eve Beglarian - Peace (Pascal)
Gabriel Kahane - 8980
Shawn Chang - Blue 
Sofia Rocha - The River 

Artists:
Sharon Harms, soprano
Emily Finke, soprano
Devony Smith, mezzo-soprano
Gregory Feldmann, baritone
Nathaniel LaNasa, pianist
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NYFOS Next: The Many Worlds Interpretation
Sunday, November 16, 2025 at 3:00 p.m.
The Theater at 150 W 17 | 150 W 17th St | New York, NY 10011
Tickets: Single tickets on sale September 1, 2025
Link: https://nyfos.org/nyfos-next/ 

Program:
Michael Stephen Brown - Love’s Lives Lost
Kimberly Osberg - You, Us, Me

Artists:
Susanna Phillips, soprano
Michael Stephen Brown, piano
Nathaniel LaNasa, pianist
Additional Artists TBA
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NYFOS Next: The Same River Twice
June 2026
The Theater at 150 W 17 | 150 W 17th St | New York, NY 10011
Tickets: Single tickets on sale September 1, 2025
Link: https://nyfos.org/nyfos-next/ 

Program:
Three premieres of new songs by Luna Composition Lab fellows commissioned by NYFOS, alongside songs by Luna alums and mentors. 

Artists:
Kelly Guerra, mezzo soprano
Jennifer Zetlan, soprano
Nathaniel LaNasa, pianist

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About Nathaniel LaNasa
Pianist, actor, and artist Nathaniel LaNasa lives at the intersection of song, story, and image. He has performed in the sculpture garden at MoMA (New York), in front of his favorite paintings at the Musée d’Orsay (Paris), and at Wigmore Hall (London). 

In May 2023 he debuted Memory Prosthetic, a recital/exhibition which explores the mechanics and aesthetics of music notation by re-notating Bach’s Goldberg Variations as a series of graphic scores, which are projected during live performance. In April, he opened his first solo exhibition of paintings in Manhasset. In March, he originated the role of Mel and served as music director for Bryce McClendon’s new play, The Smallest Sound in the Smallest Space, off-Broadway in New York. 

A consummate collaborator, he has been praised for his “stormy lyricism” (The New York Times) and his “poise and elegance” (Feast of Music). In October 2022, Nate took charge of New York Festival of Song’s new music series, NYFOS Next, presenting recitals of songs by living composers at the Rubin Museum. Earlier in 2022, he served as assistant music director and first pianist for Ricky Ian Gordon’s new opera for two pianos, Intimate Apparel. He performed the work sixty times at Lincoln Center Theater, as well as on national television for PBS Great Performances. 

Nate and baritone Gregory Feldmann made their sold-out Carnegie Hall debut in February 2020. They have since performed together at Royaumont, the Kaufman Center, and on live radio for France Musique. Nate has also partners extensively with vocalist Lucy Dhegrae; they have performed together as part of the Resonant Bodies Festival and at the American Music Festival (Albany Symphony). Nate has premiered works for quarter-tone pianos by Dimitri Tymoczko at Princeton University, made first recordings of chamber works by Tobias Picker for Tzadik, and workshopped Han Lash’s opera “Desire” at Columbia’s Miller Theater. Nate is a graduate of the Juilliard School and Manhattan School of Music.

About Sharon Harms
Soprano Sharon Harms is celebrated for her vibrant voice and fearless artistry, delivering "luscious-toned," "extraordinarily precise and expressive" performances (The New York Times). Her dedication to contemporary vocal music has made her a vital collaborator and sought-after interpreter of works by living composers. She has premiered numerous works with leading chamber ensembles, including the Talea Ensemble, Argento Ensemble, Eighth Blackbird, International Contemporary Ensemble, Lyris Quartet, Ensemble Signal, Third Coast Percussion, and the MET Opera Chamber Orchestra. Her performances have also been featured at the American Academy in Rome and the Resonant Bodies Festival.

Harms was a fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center, where she premiered Charles Wuorinen’s cantata It Happens Like This, which she later sang for her Carnegie Hall debut.

She has been a visiting artist at East Carolina University, a faculty member at New Music on the Point, and serves as soprano with the conference ensemble for the Composer’s Conference at Avaloch Farm Music Institute.

Committed to expanding the vocal repertoire, she is currently working on new works written for her and the Talea Ensemble, alongside recording projects featuring Milton Babbitt, Charles Ives, and Aaron Helgeson. She has recorded for the Albany, Bridge, and Innova labels. www.sharonharms.com

About Emily Finke
Praised for her “rich color palette” and “deft high range,” soprano Emily Finke is committed to storytelling with the utmost artistry and authenticity. Most recently, Emily sang the role of Willie in the workshop of Lincoln in the Bardo by Missy Mazzoli and Royce Vavrek with the Chautauqua Opera Company where she was a Studio Artist. During her time there, she also covered the role of Musetta in La bohème and appeared as the soprano soloist in Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 with the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra. An alumna of the Bard Conservatory Graduate Vocal Arts Program, Emily has performed the role of Eurydice in Orphée aux enfers and sang with The Orchestra Now (TON) as Sophie in excerpts from Der Rosenkavalier. Previously, Emily appeared as the soloist in Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 with the Palm Beach Symphony and Bach’s Weihnachtsoratorium with the Albany Symphony. Originally from the San Francisco Bay Area, Emily is now based in the Hudson Valley, NY.

About Devony Smith
Recognized for her "sensual" and "strong" voice (The New York Times), mezzo-soprano Devony Smith is a dynamic artist equally at home in opera, concert music, and contemporary repertoire. She has brought characters to life on stages from New York City Opera to Freiburg, Germany, performing roles like Cherubino, Hansel, Cenerentola, Rosina, and Dido.

A champion of concert repertoire, Devony has been a featured recitalist with the Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts, Carnegie Hall Citywide, the Ravinia Steans Music Institute, and SongFest, where she received the prestigious Sorel Fellowship.

A dedicated interpreter of new music, she recently premiered Little River Songs by Grammy Award-winning composer Jennifer Higdon and sang the role of the Designer in the world premiere of Luna Pearl Woolf’s oratorio Number Our Days at the Perelman Performing Arts Center with the Choir of Trinity Wall Street. This summer, Devony released her debut solo album with her duo partner Danny Zelibor, which includes studio premieres and commissions from composers Mark Adamo, David Lang, Jennifer Higdon, Will Liverman, B.E. Boykin, Eve Beglarian, Benjamin Perry Wenzelberg, and Jake Landau. www.DevonySmith.com

About Gregory Feldmann 
Hailed for his “hearty, luxurious baritone” (Musical America), American baritone Gregory Feldmann is a rising artist on opera, musical theatre, and recital stages alike. This season, Feldmann will return to Opernhaus Zürich in January to perform Dancaïre in Bizet’s Carmen, the same role he will cover at the Metropolitan Opera in October. Feldmann made his role debut in the title role of Ambroise Thomas’ Hamlet last summer with the Buxton International Festival in the UK. He also reprised the role of Demetrius in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream with the Blackwater Valley Opera Festival in Ireland. Last season saw a role debut as Mercutio in Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette, as well as a reprise of Elviro in Handel’s Serse, all with Opernhaus Zürich.

On the concert stage, Feldmann will partner again with conductor Annedore Neufeld and the Basler Münsterkantorei in December to present Honegger’s Cantique de Noël and Lili Boulanger’s Psalm 130. He sang the role of Raphaël in Haydn’s Creation last April with the Sequoia Symphony Orchestra in Visalia, California under conductor Bruce Kiesling. In March 2025, Feldmann rejoined the Zürcher Bach Chor in March 2025 to present Schubert’s Mass in C and Smyth’s Song of Love at the Tonhalle Zürich.

A passionate recitalist, Feldmann enjoys a “luminous” partnership with pianist Nathaniel LaNasa (Oberon’s Grove). Feldmann and LaNasa’s recitals have confronted national narratives and artistic legacies, with recital projects including Degenerate Music, a contrarian reimagining of the 1938 Entartete Musik exhibition in Düsseldorf. Here, Feldmann and LaNasa celebrated and uplifted composers that were censored by the Third Reich and asked questions of who historically has decided the classical canon. The duo presented Degenerate Music in their sold-out Carnegie Hall debut in 2019. Their most recent project, American Icons, partnered with oral historian Cynthia Tobar to explore national monuments and the communities living in their shadows. American Icons saw the premieres of songs by Shawn Chang, Molly Joyce, Matthew Ricketts, and Jorell Williams.?

Feldmann and LaNasa have partnered with organizations including the New York Festival of Song (to premiere Iván Enrique Rodríguez’s Mother of Exiles in November 2024 and Iain Bell’s We Two in October 2023), Sparks and Wiry CRIES (to premiere Curtis Stewart’s Do You See the Flag? in 2021), and the Musee d’Orsay and Royaumont Foundation (to produce their first studio release of Faure’s L’horizon chimérique and Ullmann’s Liederbuch des Hafis). The duo took First Prize in the 2021 Gerda Lissner Song/Lieder Competition and the 2019 Joy in Singing International Song Competition.

Based in Brooklyn, New York, Feldmann is a graduate of the Artist Diploma in Opera Studies program at the Juilliard School.

About Susanna Phillips
Soprano Susanna Phillips has established herself as one of today’s most sought-after musician. Career highlights include The Metropolitan Opera in over eleven roles, premiering Rose/Awakenings at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, and performing the role of Stella/A Streetcar Named Desire opposite Renée Fleming. Ms. Phillips has also sung leading roles with Boston Baroque including Cleopatra/Giulio Cesare and the title role in Agrippina. Other opera house engagements include Lyric Opera of Chicago, Cincinnati Opera, Dallas Opera, and Gran Teatro del Liceu. Dedicated to symphonic works, she has collaborated with highly esteemed orchestras including Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and her native Huntsville Symphony. An avid chamber music collaborator, she has performed a tribute concert to Clara Schumann at the Library of Congress and has sung for Washington Performing Arts in a program co-curated by the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Prestigious awards include some of the world’s leading vocal competitions: The Metropolitan Opera’s Beverly Sills Artist Award, The Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition, and Operalia. She has also claimed the top honor at the Marilyn Horne Foundation Competition and first prizes from the American Opera Society and Musicians Club of Women. She is an alumna of Lyric Opera of Chicago’s The Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Opera Center and holds both a Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degree from The Juilliard School.

Ms. Phillips’ 2024/25 Season includes engagements with Seattle Symphony, Musica Sacra, Oratorio Society of New York, Saint Louis Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, and a tour with her chamber ensemble, SPA Trio.

About Michael Stephen Brown
Michael Stephen Brown is a composer and pianist hailed by The New York Times as “one of the leading figures in the current renaissance of performer-composers.”

A 2025 MacDowell Fellow and 2024 Yaddo Artist, Composer-Pianist Michael Stephen Brown performs recitals and concertos worldwide and receives commissions from leading orchestras, performers and chamber music festivals. Winner of the Emerging Artist Award from Lincoln Center and an Avery Fisher Career Grant, he has performed as a soloist with leading orchestras such as the Seattle Symphony and NFM Leopoldinum, and in recitals at venues including Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, the Louvre, Wigmore Hall, and Beethoven-Haus Bonn. He is currently composing THE MAGICAL CARNIVAL, a large-scale chamber ensemble work co-commissioned by four organizations premiering in 2026. A frequent artist with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Brown tours internationally in a duo with his longtime musical partner, cellist Nicholas Canellakis, and collaborates regularly with violinists Pinchas Zukerman and Arnaud Sussmann. A passionate educator, he regularly gives lectures and masterclasses worldwide.

Brown’s compositions have been commissioned by leading organizations and artists, including the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Bridgehampton and Gilmore festivals, the Maryland Symphony, Osmo Vänskä and Erin Keefe, the SPA Trio, and pianists Anne-Marie McDermott, Jerome Lowenthal, Ursula Oppens, Orion Weiss, Adam Golka, and Roman Rabinovich, soprano Susanna Phillips, and cellist Nicholas Canellakis. Recently, he served as Composer and Artist-in-Residence at the New Haven Symphony and is a recipient of the Copland House Residency Award. His symphonic work, American Diaries, draws on words by Maya Angelou, Langston Hughes, and excerpts from his grandfather’s World War II diary.

Selected by András Schiff to perform on an international recital tour, Brown made debuts at Zurich's Tonhalle and New York's 92nd Street Y. He regularly appears at major festivals including Tanglewood, Marlboro, Music@Menlo, Ravinia, Saratoga, Caramoor, Bard, Sedona, Moab, and Tippet Rise. A prolific recording artist, Connection, an album of his works featuring his Piano Concerto with the East Coast Chamber Orchestra, and Mendelssohn with premieres by Delphine von Schauroth are both slated for release in 2025.

A First Prize winner of the Concert Artists Guild Competition and a recipient of the Bowers Residency from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Brown earned dual degrees in piano and composition from the Juilliard School, where he studied with pianists Jerome Lowenthal and Robert McDonald, and composer Samuel Adler. Additional mentors have included George Perle, András Schiff, and Richard Goode. Brown is also an Artist Ambassador for Creatives Care, an organization helping artists access affordable mental healthcare.

A native New Yorker, Michael lives in New York City with his two nineteenth-century Steinway D pianos, Octavia and Daria. Known for his engaging commentary on music and his colorful sock changes during intermission, audiences eagerly anticipate both his insights and his unique sense of style.

About Kelly Guerra
Peruvian-American mezzo-soprano Kelly Guerra is widely recognized for her distinctive voice, described as “rich and sultry, radiating warmth and power, with a smoky timbre” Isthmus News (2025).

Guerra is known for bringing passion and nuance to her performances. Her 2024-25 season features a diverse array of roles. She made her Metropolitan Opera debut as one of the Niñas in Golijov’s flamenco opera Ainadamar, directed and choreographed by Deborah Colker, Jo March in Mark Adamo’s Little Women with Fort Worth Opera, the alto soloist in Handel’s Messiah with the Glacier Symphony, Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia with Opera Las Vegas, Isabella in L’Italiana in Algeri with Anchorage Opera and Opera in the Heights, María in María de Buenos Aires with Madison Opera, and Mrs. Fox in Fantastic Mr. Fox with Opera Omaha.

In fall of 2025 she portrays the iconic activist Dolores Huerta in the premieres of Dolores by Nicolás Lell Benavides and Marella Martin Koch at West Edge Opera and Opera Southwest, a co- commission with San Diego Opera and the Broad Stage in Santa Monica. Fall 2025 she will also sing Mercedes and cover Carmen in Carmen with Gulfshore Opera. In 2026 she makes a role debut as Sesto in Giulio Cesare with Opera Santa Barbara and will make her Pacific Opera Project debut as Carlota de Obragón in Zorro. 

Guerra’s versatility extends to many styles and eras of vocal music, from Mozart to Sondheim to Héctor Lavoe. She made her Los Angeles Philharmonic debut under John Adams and premiered Katherine Balch’s orchestral song cycle Illuminate with the California Symphony. In Summer 2024, Kelly honed her musical theatre skills with Lindsay Mendez and Ryan Scott Oliver’s Actor Therapy. Her performances as Lupita and Renata in the mariachi opera Cruzar la Cara de la Luna earned her praise as“brilliant” and “exquisite.” Guerra also toured in Wayne Shorter and Esperanza Spalding’s (...Iphigenia), her role as Iphigenia Unbound noted as “beautifully sung” by the Washington Post.

As a recitalist, Guerra has been featured at the Lucerne Festival, Tanglewood Music Center, and Bard Music Festival. As a first generation American and native of Southern California, Guerra's work focuses on promoting Spanish-language and contemporary repertoire, with a commitment to making the concert hall more inclusive.

About Jennifer Zetlan
Soprano Jennifer Zetlan is internationally recognized for her artistry and captivating stage presence. She has been seen and heard on opera and concert stages worldwide, as well as on Broadway. In the current season, she is seen in Ricky Ian Gordon’s The Tibetan Book of the Dead with Grand Rapids Opera. Additionally, she is taking part in numerous workshops of new operas with American Lyric Theater and Works&Process at The Guggenheim as well as a forthcoming recording of Louis Karchin’s Tribute to the Angels and a premiere of a new work for chamber ensemble and soprano with the Washington Heights Chamber Orchestra by composer Paul Brantley.

Known for her passion for contemporary music, Ms. Zetlan has been featured in the premieres of numerous American operas including Ellen West (Opera Saratoga), Ned Rorem’s Our Town (Aspen Music Festival and Juilliard Opera Center), Rhoda and the Fossil Hunt (On Site Opera), Crossing (Matt Aucoin, ART in Boston and at BAM in New York), Steven Stucky and Jeremy Denk’s The Classical Style (Ojai Festival and Carnegie Hall), Morning Star (by Ricky Ian Gordon, Cincinnati Opera and On Site Opera), Nico Muhly’s Two Boys (The Metropolitan Opera), Nico Muhly’s Dark Sisters (Gotham Chamber Opera and Opera Philadelphia), Daron Hagen’s Amelia (Seattle Opera), arias from The Noblest Game (by David Diamond, Seattle Symphony), and Louis Karchin’s Jane Eyre. Other contemporary works include The Tempest Songbook (Purcell-Saariaho) with Gotham Chamber Opera, Ligeti’s Requiem (American Symphony Orchestra), Golijov’s 3 Songs for Soprano (Lexington Philharmonic), Tavener’s Requiem (St. Ignatius Loyola with Kent Tritle conducting), and Richard Ayres’ In The Alps with Alarm Will Sound for which The New York Times called her “flawless.”

At the Metropolitan Opera, Ms. Zetlan has been seen in productions of War and Peace (2nd French actress), Boris Godunov (Xenia), Le nozze di Figaro (bridesmaid), Macbeth (bloody child), and Two Boys (Rebecca). Favorite notable roles elsewhere include Gilda in Rigoletto (Seattle Opera and Crested Butte), Musetta in La bohème (Princeton Festival, Seattle Opera), Woglinde in Das Rheingold and Götterdämmerung and The Forest Bird in Siegfried (Seattle Opera), Pamina in Die Zauberflöte (Charlottesville Opera, Nashville Opera), Sardula in Menotti’s The Last Savage (Santa Fe Opera), Madeline in The Fall of the House of Usher (Nashville Opera), Laoula in L’étoile (New York City Opera), and Nannetta in Falstaff (Juilliard Opera Center), among others.

Ms. Zetlan is a committed performer of orchestral works, and has performed with the New York Philharmonic, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Lexington Philharmonic, the Indianapolis Symphony, American Composers’ Orchestra, Juilliard Orchestra, Omaha Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, National Chorale, and has been heard at Carnegie Hall with Oratorio Society of New York, Musica Sacra, Alarm Will Sound, American Symphony Orchestra, MasterVoices, and the New York Youth Symphony.  Recognized as a unique recitalist, Ms. Zetlan was selected as a Marilyn Horne Foundation artist; she was heard in recital with her husband, pianist David Shimoni at Christ and St. Stephen’s Church in New York City as well as at Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall. Ms. Zetlan was awarded The Juilliard School Vocal Arts Honors Recital in Alice Tully Hall in 2012 also with Dr. Shimoni. The duo has given recitals for the Golandsky Institute, Foothills Music Festival, and the Artist Series of Sarasota. Ms. Zetlan has also given recitals with pianists Martin Katz and Ricky Ian Gordon and has released her first solo album in collaboration with Mr. Gordon at the piano. Ms. Zetlan is on the voice faculty of the Mannes College of Music.

About Luna Composition Lab
Luna Composition Lab’s mission is to close the gender gap in the field of music composition. Founded in 2016 by composers Missy Mazzoli and Ellen Reid, Luna Composition Lab provides mentorship, education, and resources for young female, nonbinary, and gender-nonconforming composers ages 13 to 18. Luna Composition Lab is the only initiative of its kind in the United States and has achieved national recognition.

Luna Lab believes that an equitable and inclusive music community that empowers artists to develop an authentic form of expression will create a more vibrant field of music. By fostering a supportive, sustained, and professional community with young composers who are female, nonbinary, or gender nonconforming, Luna Lab provides a model of inclusivity and artistic excellence for the field as a whole so that it can better reflect the society in which we live. 

The coming year – 2026 – marks the tenth anniversary of Luna Lab’s founding. Throughout the season, Luna Lab@10 will celebrate the success of our fellows through 50 alumni commissions with collaborating organizations across the country, including the LA Phil, San Francisco Girls Chorus, Louisville Symphony, and New York Festival of Song.

About New York Festival of Song
Now in its 38th 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 January of 2022, NYFOS Records issued its first album, From Rags to Riches, with Stephanie Blythe and William Burden. In January of 2025, they released their sixth album, Schubert/Beatles, with Theo Hoffman, Julia Bullock, Kunal Lahiri, and Mr. Blier. The new CD joins NYFOS Records’s burgeoning discography, alongside A Picnic Cantata (2022), the first stereo recording of a hidden gem by Paul Bowles and James Schuyler; Black & Blue (2023), the debut solo album of British-American tenor Joshua Blue collaborating with Steven Blier; Mi País: Songs of Argentina (2023) featuring bass-baritone Federico De Michelis and pianist and Steven Blier; and NYFOS Records: The Singles, Vol. 1 (2024), a wide-ranging compilation drawn from over 20 years of archival material, including tracks featuring Michael Spyres, Justin Austin, and Bernarda Fink. NYFOS Records has reached rapidly growing audiences in over 100 countries, with well over 2.5 million streams to date. 

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 17th year); Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts (its 17th year in March 2025); 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 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; and 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 releases for NYFOS Records include Black & Blue (2023), with British-American tenor Joshua Blue; Mi País: Songs of Argentina (2023) with bass-baritone Federico De Michelis; and NYFOS Records: The Singles, Vol. 1 (2024), a compilation of guest artists performing together with Steven Blier, spanning over 20 years of memorable moments and voices

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.

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