New York Festival Of Song Presents Mediterranean At Kaufman Music Center On March 14

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

NEW YORK FESTIVAL OF SONG PRESENTS
MEDITERRANEAN
AT KAUFMAN MUSIC CENTER ON MARCH 14

Featuring Caramoor’s 2023 Schwab Vocal Rising Stars in a Musical Voyage Around the Mediterranean Sea 

Featured Artists Include Soprano Shelén Hughes,
Mezzo-soprano Maggie Reneé, Tenor Colin Aikins,
Bass-baritone Joseph Parrish, and Pianist Yihao Zhou,
with Pianist Bénédicte Jourdois and
NYFOS Artistic Director Steven Blier

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

www.nyfos.org

New York, NY (January 31, 2023) — New York Festival of Song (NYFOS), led by Artistic Director Steven Blier, concludes its 2022-23 Mainstage Series with Mediterranean on Tuesday, March 14, 2023 at 8:00 p.m. at Merkin Hall, co-presented by Kaufman Music Center. The concert features the 2023 Schwab Vocal Rising Stars, in the culmination of their weeklong immersive mentorship and training program focusing on the art of song at Caramoor. 

Now celebrating its fifteenth anniversary, the annual weeklong residency 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.

This year’s participants include soprano Shelén Hughes, mezzo-soprano Maggie Reneé, tenor Colin Aikins, bass-baritone Joseph Parrish, and pianist Yihao Zhou, who will perform songs framing a musical voyage around the Mediterranean Sea from Spain to Greece, with stops in France, Italy, Israel, Egypt, Lebanon and Tunisia. Pianist Bénédicte Jourdois joins Steven Blier as co-director and pianist for the residency and performance. Prior to the concert at Merkin Hall, an additional performance is held at Caramoor on Sunday, March 12, 2023 at 3:00 p.m.

“NYFOS’s annual residency at Caramoor is a Zen garden of song, a week of intense study in a pristine, calm environment,” said Artistic Director Steven Blier. “Leaving the stresses of the city behind, all of us re-connect to our musical souls. As one singer put, ‘My artistic life divides into two periods: Before Caramoor and After Caramoor.’ It has been satisfying to watch our graduates step onto the stages of the Met, Covent Garden, and the Salzburg Festival. For our 15th season, the Schwab Vocal Rising Stars will take a musical tour of the Mediterranean from Europe to the Middle East, with a wild assortment of songs in nine languages (a NYFOS record). This year’s artists are a superb group, bound for important careers. Come catch them in their first glory!” 

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.

Concert Information
Mediterranean
March 14, 2023 at 8:00pm
Merkin Hall, Kaufman Music Center | 129 West 67th Street | New York, NY 10023
Tickets: $20-$70
Ticket Link: https://www.kaufmanmusiccenter.org/mch/event/new-york-festival-of-song-mediterranean/ 

Caramoor’s 2023 Schwab Vocal Rising Stars
     Shelén Hughes, soprano
     Maggie Reneé, mezzo-soprano
     Colin Aikins, tenor,
     Joseph Parrish, bass-baritone
     Yihao Zhou, pianist

Steven Blier, director
Bénédicte Jourdois, Associate Artistic Director and pianist

Program:
SPAIN
Toldrà - Canticel       
Nin - Paño murciano 
Granados - El majo olvidado
           Las currutacas modestas

ITALY
Nardella & Bovio - Chiove 
Ponchielli - Il Pellegrino, il trovatore, ed il cavaliere  

FRANCE
Poulenc - Three songs from Calligrammes: 
           Vers le sud
           Aussi bien que les cigales
           Voyage 

TUNISIA
Dizzie Gillespie - Night in Tunisia 

LEBANON
Najib Hankash / Iyad Kanaan - A'tini nnaya 

GREECE
Wolf - Anakreon’s Grab 
Petridis - Achtida 
Theodorakis - The Train Leaves at Eight 

EGYPT
Massenet - Voilà donc la terrible cité (from Thaïs) 

ISRAEL
Sharat/Rachel - Ve’ulai
Verdi - Qual voluttà trascorrere (from I lombardi) 

About New York Festival of Song
Now in its 35th 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. They also issue a monthly single, 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 well over 110,000 plays since its inception in November of 2021. 

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 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, and Canción amorosa, a CD of Spanish songs with soprano Corinne Winters. His latest release is From Rags to Riches with Stephanie Blythe and William Burden, 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. Steve 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 Shelén Hughes
Bolivian soprano Shelén Hughes has performed the operatic roles of Atalanta in Handel’s Atalanta, Inez in Mercadante’s I Due Figaro, Snegurochka in Rimsky-Korsakov’s Snegurochka, Micaëla in Bizet’s Carmen, and Magda in Puccini’s La Rondine. Hughes made her Carnegie Hall debut in 2019 and her New York Festival of Song debut in 2022. She was a Young Artist at the 2019 Gstaad Menuhin Festival and a 2022 Gerdine Young Artist at the Opera Theatre of St. Louis, where she performed the role of Frasquita in Bizet’s Carmen and Ms. Kohl in the premier of Picker’s Awakenings. Combining her deep passion for music and social service, Hughes is the founder of Voices for Bolivia, a small but growing international non-profit organization that seeks to use proceeds from classical music concerts to help Bolivians in need. Hughes currently studies with Darell Babidge while pursuing her Artist Diploma in Opera Studies at The Juilliard School.

About Maggie Reneé
Maggie Reneé, a mezzo-soprano from Los Angeles, is a Metropolitan Opera Competition Grand Finalist, Opera Index Award Winner, and an Honors Master’s graduate of The Juilliard School where she is pursuing her Artist Diploma in Opera Studies. This season she performs Irene in Atalanta and Baba the Turk in The Rake’s Progress at Juilliard Opera, and Zweiter Knabe in Die Zauberflöte at Merola Opera. Last season she covered Olga and Due Donne at Santa Fe Opera, and she sang King Egeo and Goffredo in Rinaldo at Juilliard. Previously, she sang Carmen in La Tragédie de Carmen with City Lyric Opera, toured Europe with Juilliard’s Dido and Aeneas, and made her European debut as Cherubino in Le Nozze di Figaro in Germany. Reneé writes her own music, has a black belt in karate, and entertains over 225K of her subscribers on YouTube daily.

About Colin Aikins
Colin Aikins, from Pittsburgh, is a tenor pursuing his Master’s of Music degree in vocal performance at The Juilliard School. Aikins received his Bachelor's of Music degree at the Curtis Institute of Music and studied with Julia Faulkner of the Chicago Lyric Opera. His roles at Curtis Opera Theater have included a member of the trio in Trouble in Tahiti, The Beadle in Sweeney Todd, Nate in Highway 1, USA, Mr. Upfold in Albert Herring, and Chavelier de Danceny in Dangerous Liaisons. Currently, Aikins is excited to be studying with esteemed tenor William Burden.

About Joseph Parrish
Joseph Parrish, a native of Baltimore, holds a Master's degree from The Juilliard School. Recent operatic credits include Dr. Cajus in Nicolai’s Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor, Il Sacerdote di Minerva in Handel’s Teseo, Dulcamara in Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore, Augure in Rossi’s L’Orfeo at Juilliard, and Le Baron de Pictordu in the City Lyric Opera’s production of Viardot’s Cendrillon. He has performed in concert at the Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, and St. Boniface church in Brooklyn, and as a soloist with Cantori New York, Bach Vespers at Holy Trinity Church, the Westchester Oratorio Society, and Juilliard 415. Parrish is currently pursuing his Artist Diploma in Opera Studies at The Juilliard School, while also serving as a Music Advancement Program teaching fellow and Gluck Community Service Fellow. He recently won first prize in the Gerda Lissner Art Song Vocal Competition and the Young Concert Artists International Competition. Parrish is a member of the Young Concert Artists roster.

About Yihao Zhou
A frequent collaborator with other musicians, New York-based pianist Yihao Zhou is the winner of the Lila Bell Acheson Wallace Endowed Prize. Zhou graduated with highest honors from Macalester College, where he earned degrees in both music and mathematics, a unique combination that has led him to become a genuine artist who plays with great care and sensitivity. As a recitalist, Zhou has appeared at summer festivals including the Castleman Quartet Program, the Round Top Festival Institute, and SongFest, among others. In addition to his performance accomplishments, Zhou was previously on the accompanying staff at CUNY Hunter College. Zhou is a recent graduate of The Juilliard School, where he has been a staff accompanist since 2020. He is currently completing further studies with Thomas Muraco at Manhattan School of Music.

About Bénédicte Jourdois
A graduate of the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program at The Metropolitan Opera, Bénédicte Jourdois is currently on music staff at the Metropolitan Opera and on faculty at The Juilliard School. Jourdois has performed in numerous venues in Europe and in the United States, including Alice Tully Hall and Carnegie Hall in New York and the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. As a coach and pianist, she has worked with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Los Angeles Opera, Chicago Lyric Ryan Opera Center, Pittsburgh Opera, Washington National Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Opera Philadelphia, Opera Saratoga, Rice University, the Chautauqua Institution voice program, the Castleton Festival, Spoleto Festival USA, and Carnegie Hall’s SongStudio. She was a faculty member at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia from 2013 to 2016 and at the Manhattan School of Music from 2011 to 2018. Born in Paris, Jourdois holds degrees from the Conservatoire National de Region de Saint-Maur, the Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique de Lyon, Mannes College, and The Juilliard School.

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