The New York Festival of Song Launches Its Second Season of NYFOS AFTER HOURS, 10/20

Monday, October 20 at 10:00 p.m., New York Festival of Song (NYFOS) launches its second season of the NYFOS After Hours cabaret series at HENRY's Restaurant, 2745 Broadway at 105th Street. These evenings are an uncanny mixture of intimacy and dynamite, the cozy and the colossal, with singers that one would ordinarily see on a much larger stage.

Entitled A Crystal Anniversary Cabaret, this opening concert celebrates the restaurant's fifteen years on the Upper West Side with songs about friendship, food, and hospitality. Music will range from Ahrens and Flaherty to The Beatles, Bob Merrill, and Kurt Weill. Joining NYFOS co-founder and Artistic Director Steven Blier on piano will be sopranos Julia Bullock and Meredith Lustig, tenors Ben Bliss, Miles Mykkanen and Theo Lebow, and baritones Jonathan Estabrooks and Theo Hoffman.

Blier is also the master of ceremonies for these NYFOS shows, and it's his "deliciously witty introductions" that "sew the parts together," writes The New York Times. The Washington Post marvels at his "uncanny way of putting together a seemingly diverse program of songs-including Broadway classics and pop-under a single unifying theme." Blier marks his fifth year of creating concerts at HENRY's with this jubilee.

There is a $10 cover and reservations are required
by calling 212-866-0600. Walk-ins are always welcome at the bar.

About NYFOS After Hours

In February 2010 at HENRY's Restaurant on the Upper West Side, an informal world-class cabaret series began, springing out of a personal friendship between NYFOS Artistic Director Steven Blier and restaurant owner Henry Rinehart.

Eventually dubbed NYFOS After Hours, these highly popular late-night-and unamplified-concerts entertain diners with superlative voices in a mix of freshly created shows and revivals of past programs. The cream of New York's rising talent joins some of the city's most illustrious singers and actors, accompanied by Blier at the piano.

NYFOS After Hours is presented as part of the restaurant's ongoing series, Sing for Your Supper @ HENRY's. Henry Rinehart says: "All of us at HENRY's are thrilled to host this series with Steven Blier and NYFOS. NYFOS is one of New York's great cultural institutions and Steven is a dear friend. Together we will continue to present Broadway's most intimate night of song to packed houses."

UPCOMING NYFOS AFTER HOURS:

CD RELEASE CONCERT
Canción amorosa: Songs of Spain, with Corinne Winters (GPR Records)
Monday, November 17, music at 10:00pm

A GOYISHE CHRISTMAS TO YOU!

Monday, December 15, 10:00pm
An instant classic, this popular NYFOS program has become an annual tradition.
It features holiday favorites-and some lesser-known gems-written by Jewish songwriters. Performers include host Steven Blier on piano with clarinetist Alan Kay and Cantor Joshua Breitzer, and many others TBA.

GREAT AMERICAN SONGWRITING TEAMS

Monday, May 4, 10:00pm
Program details and performers, TBA

ABOUT NYFOS

www.nyfos.org

"People have a primal need to be sung to and communicated with through song.
The essential core of truth in each song-that part where you feel 'that's me, I've been there'-
that's what we're always looking for."
- Steven Blier

Now in its 27th 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 high and low performance 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. Soon to come: a CD of Spanish song-Basque, Catalan, Castilian, and Sephardic-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. Starting in 2013-2014, the series moved to Opera America's National Opera 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 9th year); Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts (its 6th year in March 2014); San Francisco Opera Center (over 15 years as of April 2013); 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.

Photo Courtesy of NYFOS