NEW YORK FESTIVAL OF SONG to Launch 2026-2027 Season at Merkin Hall and Beyond

The New York Festival of Song (NYFOS) has announced its 2026-2027 season of programming. In four mainstage concerts co-presented by Kaufman Music Center at Merkin Hall, NYFOS carries on its tradition of intimate song concerts that weave music, poetry, history, and humor into evenings of compelling theater, mining a rich blend of influences from Greek mythology to the Harlem Renaissance.

NYFOS Artistic Director Steven Blier and Associate Artistic Director Bénédicte Jourdois serve as curators, hosts, and performing pianists alongside a lineup of today's leading vocal performers. In addition, the season brings three standalone concerts to venues in and around New York City, beginning with a 'reunion' program celebrating the longtime collaboration between baritone Theo Hoffman and NYFOS Artistic Director and pianist Steven Blier. In two further standalone concerts, NYFOS presents its inimitable take on the holidays in A Goyishe Christmas To You!, followed by a program staged in collaboration with The Juilliard School, Hooray for Hollywood. The NYFOS Next series also returns this season with three programs curated by pianist Nathaniel LaNasa to spotlight new contemporary song and rising composers, with highlights including World Premieres by Jeremy Beck and Cecilia Livingston.

In its season-opening standalone concert on Sunday, August 2, 2026 at 3:00pm, Theo Hoffman and Steven Blier reunite for a program at Poquatuck Hall in Orient, NY. In REUNION: Theo Hoffman and Steven Blier, NYFOS celebrates 14 years since the start of the two artists' collaborative journey - first as mentor and student, now as cherished colleagues. Hoffman's recent album on NYFOS Records, Schubert/Beatles, was nominated for a GRAMMY Award, while his opera and concert appearances have garnered rave reviews around the world. In this concert, he and Blier commemorate their years of collaboration in a program of songs by Gershwin, Guastavino, Bernstein, the Beatles, and Sondheim.

NYFOS opens its mainstage season at Merkin Hall on Tuesday, October 20, 2026 at 8:00pm with First-Name Basis, a concert of songs named for a colorful cast of characters from history, literature, and music - from Beethoven's 'Adelaide' to Fauré's 'Lydia' to Noël Coward's 'Nina.' Featuring performances by soprano Christine Taylor Price, mezzo-soprano Megan Moore, and baritone Samuel Kidd, this eclectic program references figures from Biblical times (Belsazar) and Greek mythology (Ganymede) to the Beatles' London (Michelle) and Randy Newman's America (Marie), all immortalized in song.

In a special holiday performance on Monday, December 7, 2026 at 8:00pm, NYFOS presents A Goyishe Christmas to You! at The Theater at 150W17th and viewable via livestream. This uniquely festive program features favorite Yuletide tunes (performed with a twist) along with specialty material - all by Jewish composers. Performers include soprano Lauren Worsham, mezzo-sopranos Donna Breitzer and Rebecca Jo Loeb, tenor Alex Mansoori, baritone Joshua Jeremiah, cantor Joshua Breitzer, and clarinetist Alan R. Kay, with Steven Blier as pianist and host.

NYFOS returns in the new year with The NYFOS@Juilliard show, Hooray for Hollywood!, on Wednesday, January 13, 2027 at 7:30pm at The Juilliard School's Peter Jay Sharp Theater. Students from the Marcus Institute of Vocal Arts will star in this program following a residency with NYFOS's own Steven Blier and stage director Katherine M. Carter, performing songs celebrating the glamour of the silver screen. This program - including Herman Hupfield's As Time Goes By (from Casablanca) as well as songs by Stephen Sondheim, The Beatles, and Burt Bacharach - will be streamed live on the Juilliard website free of charge, but will not be available to view afterwards. Tickets are available starting in fall 2026 from the Juilliard box office.

On Wednesday, February 10, 2027 at 8:00pm at Merkin Hall, NYFOS presents United We Stand, a new program exploring the universal values that unite us all, through music by Joni Mitchell, Carlos López Buchardo, Fairuz, Franz Schubert, and others. Taking a stand against cruelty and intolerance, this program sings of kindness, connection, love, and the beauty of a day well lived. NYFOS favorites Theo Hoffman, baritone, and Shelén Hughes Camacho, soprano, lead an international cast for a United Nations of Song, a hymn to ethics, and a call to action.

The season continues on Tuesday, March 9, 2027 at 8:00pm at Merkin Hall with Guilty Pleasures, a concert of indulgence in secrets, admonitions, parables, guilt, and delights from many cultures and centuries. In this annual program with Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts, Steven Blier and Bénédicte Jourdois will host a week-long residency and mentorship with Caramoor's 2027 Schwab Vocal Rising Stars - a quartet of singers and one pianist - culminating in a concert of 'unguilty pleasures.' This bracing dive into the Seven Deadly Sins (and assorted lesser peccadillos) includes songs by Strauss, Britten, John Jacob Niles, Brahms, and Irving Berlin.

The mainstage season at Merkin Hall closes on Monday, April 5, 2027 at 8:00pm with Harlem Renaissance, a tribute to the creative power of Black America that surged a hundred years ago on Manhattan's Upper West Side. Two powerhouse singers, mezzo-soprano Lucia Bradford and baritone Justin Austin, will Raise the Roof with tunes such as The Joint Is Jumpin' and What Harlem Means to Me, performing songs by 'Fats' Waller, Florence Price, Duke Ellington, Eubie Blake, J. Rosamund Johnson, and William Grant Still, along with readings from Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston.

NYFOS Next

This season's NYFOS Next series will highlight the World Premieres of Jeremy Beck's Dorothy Parker Songs and three new songs by Cecilia Livingston, sung by mezzo-soprano Indyana Schneider. All NYFOS Next concerts will be held at The Theater at 150 W 17th Street, with performances on Sunday, September 27, 2026, Sunday, November 15, 2026 and Sunday, May 23, 2027 - all beginning at 3:00pm and offering complimentary refreshments.

On Sunday, September 27, 2026, NYFOS Next stages A Perfect Rose: Dorothy Parker Songs. Celebrating the 20th century poet famed for her caustic wit, this program brings the World Premieres of four new 'Parker Songs' by Jeremy Beck. Irresistible to composers from the Jazz Age through the present, Parker's words are also captured in works by Danika Lorén and Ricky Ian Gordon, refracting the 'flapper poet's' observations through a modern lens. In addition, the program brings a theatrical interpretation of one of Parker's short stories, plus a new arrangement of Ralph Rainger's jazz standard based on a Parker text, I Wished on the Moon. Artists include sopranos Kerrigan Bigelow and Paulina Swierczek, and clarinetist Alec Manasse.

NYFOS Next returns on Sunday, November 15, 2026 with This Now Naked Life, featuring mezzo-soprano Shannon Keegan and Brooklyn-based vocalist leiken. In songs about our machines, our homes, and our finitude, this concert contrasts humanity's reach and humanity's grasp. Daniel Pesca's Terra Incognita imagines four stages in the process of lunar exploration, while works by Thomas Kotcheff and Joel Balzun take an in-depth look at natural processes of wonder closer to home. A premiere of selections from leiken's 'Ars moriendi' proposes a quietly soulful relationship with limitation.

In the season's final program, If We Can Love in This Lifetime, NYFOS Next showcases collaborations between composers and singers who write, anchored by queer literary lineages originating in the deep past. Novelist and mezzo-soprano Indyana Schneider will perform in the World Premiere of her collaboration with Cecilia Livingston, combining Livingston's own texts with fragments from the poet Sappho. In addition, baritone Michael Kelly performs John Glover's cycle After Him, comprising texts by the Elizabethan English poet Richard Barnfield, the 20th century American poet Frank O'Hara, and Kelly himself.

New York Festival of Song 2026-2027 Season Calendar

Sunday, August 2, 2026
REUNION: Theo Hoffman and Steven Blier

Poquatuck Hall | Orient, NY
Link: www.eventbrite.com/e/1993286151537?aff=oddtdtcreator

Theo Hoffman, baritone
Steven Blier, pianist

Program:
Songs by:
George Gershwin
Carlos Guastavino
Leonard Bernstein
The Beatles
Stephen Sondheim

Sunday, September 27, 2026 at 3:00pm
A Perfect Rose: Dorothy Parker Songs (NYFOS Next)

The Theater at 150 W 17th Street | New York, NY
Link: nyfos.org/nyfos-next

Kerrigan Bigelow, soprano
Paulina Swierczek, soprano
Alec Manasse, clarinet
Nathaniel LaNasa, piano

Program:
Jeremy Beck - Dorothy Parker Songs [World Premieres]
Danika Lorén - songs on texts by Dorothy Parker
Ricky Ian Gordon - songs on texts by Dorothy Parker
Ralph Rainger and Dorothy Parker - I Wished on the Moon

Tuesday, October 20, 2026 at 8:00pm
FIRST-NAME BASIS

Merkin Hall at Kaufman Music Center | New York, NY
Link: www.kaufmanmusiccenter.org/mch/event/new-york-festival-of-song-first-name-basis/

Christine Taylor Price, soprano
Megan Moore, mezzo-soprano
Samuel Kidd, baritone
Steven Blier, pianist
Bénédicte Jourdois, pianist

Program:
Ludwig van Beethoven - Adelaide
Gabriel Fauré - Lydia
Noël Coward - Nina
The Beatles - Michelle
Randy Newman - Marie

Sunday, November 15, 2026 at 3:00pm
This Now Naked Life (NYFOS Next)

The Theater at 150 W 17th Street | New York, NY
Link: nyfos.org/nyfos-next

Shannon Keegan, mezzo-soprano
leiken, vocalist
Nathaniel LaNasa, piano

Program:
Daniel Pesca - Terra Incognita
Thomas Kotcheff - songs
Joel Balzun - songs
leiken - Selections from Ars moriendi [World Premiere]

Monday, December 7, 2026 at 8:00pm
A Goyishe Christmas to You!

The Theater at 150 W 17th Street | New York, NY
Link: nyfos.org/goyishe-christmas/
Also available via livestream

Lauren Worsham, soprano
Donna Breitzer, mezzo-soprano
Rebecca Jo Loeb, mezzo-soprano
Alex Mansoori, tenor
Joshua Jeremiah, baritone
Joshua Breitzer, cantor
Alan R. Kay, clarinet
Steven Blier, pianist and host

Wednesday, January 13, 2027 at 7:30pm
Hooray For Hollywood!

Peter Jay Sharp Theater, The Juilliard School | New York, NY
Tickets available Fall 2026

Students of the Marcus Institute of Vocal Arts

Program:
Songs by:
Stephen Sondheim
The Beatles
Burt Bacharach
Herman Hupfeld

Wednesday, February 10, 2027 at 8:00pm
United We Stand

Merkin Hall at Kaufman Music Center | New York, NY
Link: www.kaufmanmusiccenter.org/mch/event/new-york-festival-of-song-united-we-stand/

Theo Hoffman, baritone
Shelén Hughes Camacho, soprano
Steven Blier, host and pianist
Bénédicte Jourdois, pianist

Program:
Songs by:
Joni Mitchell
Carlos López Buchardo
Fairuz
Franz Schubert

Tuesday, March 9, 2027 at 8:00pm
Guilty Pleasures

Merkin Hall at Kaufman Music Center | New York, New York
Link: www.kaufmanmusiccenter.org/mch/event/new-york-festival-of-song-guilty-pleasures/

Steven Blier, host and pianist
Bénédicte Jourdois, host and pianist
Caramoor 2027 Schwab Vocal Rising Stars

Program:
Songs by:
Richard Strauss
Benjamin Britten
John Jacob Niles
Johannes Brahms
Irving Berlin

Monday, April 5, 2027 at 8:00pm
Harlem Renaissance

Merkin Hall at Kaufman Music Center | New York, New York
Link: www.kaufmanmusiccenter.org/mch/event/new-york-festival-of-song-harlem-renaissance/

Lucia Bradford, mezzo-soprano
Justin Austin, baritone
Steven Blier, host and pianist
Bénédicte Jourdois, pianist

Program:
Songs by:
Fats Waller
Florence Price
Duke Ellington
Eubie Blake
J. Rosamond Johnson
William Grant Still

Readings from Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston

Sunday, May 23, 2027 at 3:00pm
If We Can Love in This Lifetime (NYFOS Next)

The Theater at 150 W 17th Street | New York, New York
Link: nyfos.org/nyfos-next

Indyana Schneider, mezzo-soprano
Michael Kelly, baritone

Program:
Cecilia Livingston and Indyana Schneider - song cycle [World Premiere]
John Glover - After Him

About New York Festival of Song (NYFOS)

Now in its 39th 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, which was nominated for a 2026 Grammy Award. The new CD joins NYFOS Records' 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. Pianist and new music specialist Nathaniel LaNasa has served as series curator since 2022, when NYFOS Next found its current home, the former Rubin Museum space 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 18th year in March 2026); 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.

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