A PERFECT ROSE: DOROTHY PARKER SONGS to Open NYFOS Next Season

The New York Festival of Song (NYFOS) will present the season's first performance – A Perfect Rose: Dorothy Parker Songs – on Sunday, September 27, 2026 at 3:00pm at The Theater at 150 W 17th Street. Part of the NYFOS Next series, curated by pianist Nathaniel LaNasa to spotlight new contemporary song and rising composers, this program brings the World Premiere of Dorothy Parker Songs, a four-song set by Jeremy Beck.

This musical tribute to Dorothy Parker, the 20th century American poet known for her caustic wit, vividly illustrates how Parker's writing has inspired composers from the Jazz Age through the present day. Along with Beck's World Premiere, the program includes Parker-inspired works by Danika Lorén, Katie Ernst, and Ricky Ian Gordon, each refracting the “flapper poet's” observations through its own 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. Performers include sopranos Kerrigan Bigelow and Paulina Swierczek, clarinetist Alec Manasse, and pianist Nathaniel LaNasa, who will join Manasse for a performance of Valerie Coleman's Sonatine for Clarinet and Piano. All NYFOS Next concerts offer complimentary refreshments.

A Perfect Rose is the first of three NYFOS Next programs scheduled for this season. The series continues with This Now Naked Life on Sunday, November 15, 2026, and If We Can Love in This Lifetime on Sunday, May 23, 2027, both at 3:00pm at The Theater at 150 W 17th Street.

“Discovering how composers and lyricists experiment in intimate settings is one of the greatest joys of planning a NYFOS Next season,” says Nathaniel LaNasa. “This year, I look forward to three concerts full of songs that synthesize new musical forms from our rich musical inheritance. From Dorothy Parker's punchy aphorisms stylized in jazz idioms and beyond; to leiken's medieval-inflected vocalism and singer-songwriter reflections on finitude; to Cecilia Livingston's fantasias on ancient fragments; this season promises a widely varied, sensuously beautiful tour of brand new song. I am especially excited to introduce our audiences to soprano Kerrigan Bigelow, a NYFOS residency alum; lyricist Michael Kelly, familiar as a beloved baritone on the concert scene; and novelist and mezzo-soprano Indyana Schneider in her American debut." 

The NYFOS Next series is funded in part by a grant from The Aaron Copland Fund for Music; the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature; and by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. 

Program Information

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
Single Tickets ($25) and NYFOS Next Series Subscriptions ($60):

Program:

Jeremy Beck – Dorothy Parker Songs (2026) [World Premiere]
Katie Ernst – Bric a brac (2015)
Danika Lorén – Salome's Dancing Lesson (2024)
Danika Lorén – Tombstones in the Starlight (2023)
Ricky Ian Gordon – One Perfect Rose (2024)
Ralph Rainger, arr. Beck Vontver – I Wished on the Moon (arr. 2026)
Valerie Coleman – Sonatine for Clarinet and Piano (2018)

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