James S. Marcus News

Four up-and-coming opera singers will showcase their talents as The Metropolitan Opera Rising Stars Concert Series comes to  Mayo Performing Arts Center on Saturday, April 2, 2016 at 8 PM. Tickets are $29 - $59.

Four-time Grammy Award-winner, Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, recent Kennedy Center Honoree and the first woman to be awarded The Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, Carole King's (b. February 9, 1942) career as a singer-songwriter is unparalleled.

It's a shame that Bellini wasn't Donizetti--because the story of LA SONNAMBULA seems to be begging for the full comic treatment and could have been a great companion to L'ELISIR D'AMORE. (I'm not sure how Maria Callas would have felt about changes in one of her great roles.) As it stands, performing the semi-serious work in a concert format--as The Juilliard Opera did last week--is the next best thing, putting the emphasis on the music and the virtuoso singing it calls for and less on the absurd storyline.

King's story of struggle and triumph is chronicled in American Masters: B.B. King: The Life of Riley, premiering nationwide during Black History Month today, February 12 at 9 p.m. (ET) on PBS

New York Festival of Song marks its eighth annual residency at the Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts with AT HOME, to be performed on Tuesday, March 15, 2016 at 8:00 p.m. at Merkin Concert Hall.

New York Festival of Song's contemporary song series NYFOS Next -- dubbed 'invaluable' by The New Yorker and The New York Times -- enters its sixth season and continues its new format: a three-concert February mini-festival in the intimate state-of-the-art recital hall at OPERA America's National Opera Center. The Thursday concerts take place today, February 4, as well as February 11, and 18, 2016 at 7:00 p.m.

Now, King tells her own story in the new documentary American Masters -- CAROLE KING: NATURAL WOMAN, premiering nationwide Friday, February 19 at 9 p.m. on PB

MasterVoices (formerly The Collegiate Chorale) continues the 2015-2016 season with Henry Purcell and Nahum Tate's tempestuous Baroque opera, Dido and Aeneas,on April 28, 2016 at 7pm and April 29, 2016 at 8pm at New York City Center, 131 W. 55th Street, New York City.

At today's TCA press tour, PBS President and CEO Paula Kerger announced that it will air Hamilton'S AMERICA, a feature film documentary providing intimate access to Lin-Manuel Miranda and his colleagues during the two years leading up to the Broadway opening of the musical Hamilton.

The New York Festival of Song marks its eleventh annual co-presentation with Juilliard's Ellen and James S. Marcus Institute for Vocal Arts with a new program titled HARRY, HOAGY, and HAROLD.

King's story of struggle and triumph is chronicled in American Masters: B.B. King: The Life of Riley, premiering nationwide during Black History Month on Friday, February 12 at 9 p.m. (ET) on PBS

Still going strong after more than 50 years, 'The Queen of Country Music' is now the subject of the new documentary American Masters -- LORETTA LYNN: STILL A MOUNTAIN GIRL premiering nationwide Friday, March 4 at 9 p.m. on PBS

BroadwayWorld is excited to report that New York Festival of Song has set a starry, Broadway-filled cast for its 2016 spring gala, Topsy Turvy: The NYFOS Guide to Gilbert & Sullivan.

Four-time Grammy Award-winner, Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, recent Kennedy Center Honoree and the first woman to be awarded The Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, Carole King's (b. February 9, 1942) career as a singer-songwriter is unparalleled.

New York Festival of Song's contemporary song series NYFOS Next -- dubbed 'invaluable' by The New Yorker and The New York Times -- enters its sixth season and continues its new format: a three-concert February mini-festival in the intimate state-of-the-art recital hall at OPERA America's National Opera Center. The Thursday concerts take place February 4, 11, and 18, 2016 at 7:00 p.m.

The New York Festival of Song marks its eleventh annual co-presentation with Juilliard's Ellen and James S. Marcus Institute for Vocal Arts with a new program titled HARRY, HOAGY, and HAROLD.

New York Festival of Song brings back its much-anticipated program 'A Goyishe Christmas to You!' on Monday, December 14, 2015 at 10:00 p.m. at HENRY's Restaurant as part of NYFOS's 'After Hours' cabaret series.

New York Festival of Song opens a new season of NYFOS Mainstage with 'From Russia to Riverside Drive: Rachmaninoff & Friends,' featuring Rachmaninoff's ravishing romanticism and his American contemporaries - songs by Rachmaninoff, Ellington, Gershwin, Schillinger.

?New York Festival of Song premieres SCHUBERT|BEATLES on Tuesday, December 8, 2015 at 8:00 p.m. at Merkin Concert Hall, as part of NYFOS's classic long-running Mainstage series.