New York Festival of Song Finishes Series with THE WIDER VIEW: SONGS BY BLACK COMPOSERS

New York Festival of Song (NYFOS), led by Artistic Director Steven Blier, concludes its 2021-22 Mainstage Series with The Wider View: Songs by Black Composers on Wednesday, April 13, 2022 at 8:00pm at Merkin Hall, co-presented by Kaufman Music Center. The concert features mezzo-soprano Lucia Bradford, soprano Kearstin Piper Brown, and baritone Jorell Williams, together with pianists Nathaniel LaNasa and Steven Blier, in works by Black composers that include H. Leslie Adams, Margaret Bonds, Harry Burleigh, Adolphus C. Hailstork, Robert Owens, Hale Smith, and William Grant Still.

The Wider View: Songs by Black Composers is set to take place on April 13, 2022 at 8:00pm at the Merkin Hall at Kaufman Music Center, 129 West 67th Street, New York, NY 10023.
Tickets can be purchased at https://www.kaufmanmusiccenter.org/mch/event/new-york-festival-of-song-the-wider-view-songs-by-black-composers/.

The concert will feature works by by H. Leslie Adams, Margaret Bonds, Harry Burleigh, Adolphus C. Hailstork, Robert Owens, Hale Smith, and William Grant Still. 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.

About New York Festival of Song
Now in its 34th 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 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, and now the Ann Goodman Recital Hall at Kaufman Music 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 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.