New York Festival of SongAcclaimed Series for New Song Returns on September 29 & November 3 at Rubin Museum of Art

New York, NY (August 21, 2024) — New York Festival of Song (NYFOS), led by Artistic Director Steven Blier, kicks off its 2024-2025 season with the 15th annual NYFOS Next Festival on Sunday, September 29, 2024 at 3:00 p.m. at the Rubin Museum of Art. 

NYFOS’s series for new song returns with two concerts this season, the first, titled Learning, Fast and Slow, features soprano Britt Hewitt and mezzo-soprano Blythe Gaissert, with Steven Palacio on bassoon and Nathaniel LaNasa on piano performing works by Kamala Sankaram and LJ White, including White’s recent Music Library Love Song for soprano and piano, and the world premiere of Timo Andres’s On My Fortieth Birthday.  

“When I was ten, I knew exactly who I was,” said NYFOS Next curator, Nathaniel LaNasa. “When I was twenty, I had all the answers. When I turned thirty… I thought at least I had the right questions? The more I experience the world, the more I discover I have no idea. In programming this recital, I wanted to explore time’s passing and life lessons that come only in their own time. Kamala Sankaram’s meditations on aging, Theo Chandler’s explorations of repetition, and a birthday song premiere by Timo Andres join two occasions of queer discovery by LJ White. These songs celebrate flux, flashes of inspiration, moments of instruction: twinkles in which I am no longer who I was, but am not yet who I will be.” 

Called “a series that makes a passionate case for the art song as a can’t-live-without item on any civilized traveler’s packing list” (The New York Times), the NYFOS Next series returns with a program titled A Space to Make on Sunday, November 3, 2024 at 3:00 p.m. at the Rubin Museum of Art. Baritone Gregory Feldmann and LaNasa investigate monuments and landmarks in music in the world premiere of Iván Rodriguez’s Mother of Exiles, a towering rhapsody on Emma Lazaruz’s “The New Colossus.” Soprano Robin Steitz and mezzo-soprano Theo Hayes come together with Feldmann to perform additional works by Joseph Rubinstein, Isabella Gellis, and Hannah Kendall. 

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.

The NYFOS Mainstage and the NYFOS Next series are supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

Concert Information

NYFOS Next Series at the Rubin Museum of Art - Learning, Fast and Slow
Sunday, September 29, 2024 at 3:00 p.m. 
Rubin Museum of Art | 150 W 17th St | New York, NY 10011
Tickets: 2-Concert Subscriptions: $40; Single Tickets: $25
Link: Subscription pre-orders are available now from nyfos.org/24-25season

Program:
Kamala Sankaram - Listen (2020)
LJ White - Music Library Love Song (2024)
LJ White - Shuffled Notes from a Guide to Drag Kinging (2018)
Karim Al-Zand - Two Songs (2021)
Theo Chandler - As Days Repeat (2023)
Theo Chandler - Canyon Song (2023)
Iván Enrique Rodriguez - Mamá María: Cuento de Hadas en Variaciones (Mother Mary: Fairy Tale in Variations) (2020) 
Timo Andres - On My Fortieth Birthday (2021) *World Premiere
Kamala Sankaram - A Certain Age (2022)

Artists:
Blythe Gaissert, mezzo-soprano
Britt Hewitt, soprano 
Steven Palacio, bassoon
Nathaniel LaNasa, piano
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NYFOS Next Series at the Rubin Museum of Art - A Space to Make
Sunday, November 3, 2024 at 3:00 p.m.
Rubin Museum of Art | 150 W 17th St | New York, NY 10011
Tickets: Subscriptions to the 2-concert series: $40; Single Tickets: $25
Link: https://nyfos.org/nyfos-next/

Program:
Joseph Rubinstein - Uncoil (2023)
Iván Rodriguez - Mother of Exiles (2020) *World Premiere
Isabella Gellis - Montreal Songs (2021)
Hannah Kendall - Rosalind (2020)
Additional songs to be announced

Artists:
Robin Steitz, soprano
Theo Hayes, mezzo-soprano
Gregory Feldmann, baritone
Nathaniel LaNasa, piano

About Nathaniel LaNasa
Pianist, actor, and artist Nathaniel LaNasa lives at the intersection of song, story, and image. He has performed in the sculpture garden at MoMA (New York), in front of his favorite paintings at the Musée d’Orsay (Paris), and at Wigmore Hall (London). 

In May 2023 he debuted Memory Prosthetic, a recital/exhibition which explores the mechanics and aesthetics of music notation by re-notating Bach’s Goldberg Variations as a series of graphic scores, which are projected during live performance. In April, he opened his first solo exhibition of paintings in Manhasset. In March, he originated the role of Mel and served as music director for Bryce McClendon’s new play, The Smallest Sound in the Smallest Space, off-Broadway in New York. 

A consummate collaborator, he has been praised for his “stormy lyricism” (The New York Times) and his “poise and elegance” (Feast of Music). In October 2022, Nate took charge of New York Festival of Song’s new music series, NYFOS Next, presenting recitals of songs by living composers at the Rubin Museum. Earlier in 2022, he served as assistant music director and first pianist for Ricky Ian Gordon’s new opera for two pianos, Intimate Apparel. He performed the work sixty times at Lincoln Center Theater, as well as on national television for PBS Great Performances. 

Nate and baritone Gregory Feldmann made their sold-out Carnegie Hall debut in February 2020. They have since performed together at Royaumont, the Kaufman Center, and on live radio for France Musique. Nate has also partners extensively with vocalist Lucy Dhegrae; they have performed together as part of the Resonant Bodies Festival and at the American Music Festival (Albany Symphony). Nate has premiered works for quarter-tone pianos by Dimitri Tymoczko at Princeton University, made first recordings of chamber works by Tobias Picker for Tzadik, and workshopped Han Lash’s opera “Desire” at Columbia’s Miller Theater. Nate is a graduate of the Juilliard School and Manhattan School of Music.

About Blythe Gaissert
Mezzo-soprano Blythe Gaissert has established herself as one of the preeminent interpreters of some of the brightest stars of new classical music. A true singing actress, she has received critical acclaim for her interpretations of both new and traditional repertoire in opera, concert, and chamber repertoire. “Gaissert gave a dramatically powerful, vocally stunning portrait of a woman growing increasingly desperate and delusional from lack of contact with the outer world. Gaissert’s development of Loats’s personality was utterly believable, and she gave a virtuoso performance of this very challenging music’ (Arlo McKinnon, Opera News for The Echo Drift). Known for her warm tone, powerful stage presence, and impeccable musicianship and technical prowess…."Mezzo-soprano Blythe Gaissert was impossible to ignore as the headstrong Mother Marie. She has a pure, powerful and appealing voice and a forceful stage presence to match." (Denver Post) 

In the 19-20 season, Ms. Gaissert created the role of Dorothy in the world premiere of Kamala Sankaram and Rob Handel's Looking at You with Here Arts Center NYC, sang Gertrude Stein in Ricky Ian Gordon and Royce Vavrek’s 27 with Intermountain Opera Bozeman, Hannah After in As One with Opera Columbus and Opera Memphis, covered Margret in Wozzeck at the Metropolitan Opera, sang Hansel in Hansel and Gretel at San Diego Opera, performed the world premiere of a chamber piece by John Glover and Kelly Rourke with Echappe Ensemble, sang Beethoven 9 with the Fort Worth Symphony, performed the world premiere of songs by Kamala Sankaram, David T. Little and Martin Hennessy with Sybarite5 as well as the world premiere of Robert Paterson’s Autumn Songs with American Modern Ensemble at Carnegie Hall. Blythe finished out with a recital of Brahms and Schubert with the Brooklyn Art Song Society.  

In the 2018-19 season, Ms. Gaissert created the role of Georgia O’Keefe in Today it Rains with San Francisco’s Opera Parallele, the world premiere of the third opera by the highly acclaimed and record setting team of As One: Laura Kaminsky, Mark Campbell and Kimberly Reed. She is also reprising her role as Hannah After in her 6th production of As One with New York City Opera/American Opera Projects, performed Beethoven’s 9th Symphony with both the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and Sarasota Orchestra, and performed in a workshop performance of Laura Kaminsky’s fourth opera, also with librettist Kimberly Reed, Postville: Hometown to the World with Opera Fusion: New Works in conjunction with Cincinnati Opera and her alma mater Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music. Recent engagements include Berio Folk Songs and Siegrune in Die Walkuere with the Dallas Symphony, and Berlioz L’Enfance du Christ with the Orquesta Sinfónica y Coro RTVE conducted by Miguel Harth-Bedoya.  

Previous engagements include Carmen, Orlovsky in Die Fledermaus, Hansel in Hansel und Gretel, Siegrune in DIE WALKURE, Lucretia in Rape of Lucretia, Maddalena in Rigoletto, Suzuki in Madama Butterfly,  soloist in the Verdi Requiem, Berio Folk Songs, Mozart Requiem, world premieres by John Adams, Laura Kaminsky, Mikael Karlsson, Robert Paterson, Martin Hennessy, Mohammed Fairouz, Richard Pearson Thomas, Glen Roven, Yotam Haber, Jorge Martin, Tom Cipullo, Renee Favand-See, Gilda Lyons, Jessica Meyer, Gabriel Kahane and more. Companies with whom Ms. Gaissert has performed include the Metropolitan Opera, Los Angeles Philharmonic, LA Opera, Dallas Symphony, San Diego Opera, Prototype Festival, Aldeburgh Festival, Lyrique en Mer, Tulsa Opera, Lyric Opera of Kansas City, Sarasota Opera, and Opera Saratoga. 

About Britt Hewitt
Britt Hewitt is a New York City based soprano and composer. A devoted experimentalist, she can often be found working with composers on new works, writing and producing music of her own, and teaching a small number of students in voice and writing. Hewitt holds a Bachelor of Music from The Juilliard School, is a staff singer in the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church Choir, and is a member of the New York Songwriters Circle.

Hewitt hasn't known a life without music. Her parents recall her penning her own songs at the age of three, and she was always eager to perform from the family coffee table in her hometown of Jacksonville, Florida. She started taking formal lessons in country music singing at the age of eight. By twelve, she was performing for local television, winning competitions, and recording her own music. She was accepted into LaVilla Middle School of the Arts, where she studied music theory and history, classical and jazz, and musical theatre. Her final year at LaVilla marked her first performance in opera, when the school put together a pastiche program for the Metropolitan Opera's education team.

After her first year studying choral music and musical theatre at Douglas Anderson School of the Arts, Hewitt and her family relocated to Dallas, Texas. She transferred into Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, where she continued her studies in choral music, opera, and jazz. There, she performed numerous roles, including Mother in Hansel and Gretel, Pamina in The Magic Flute, Mother in Amahl and the Night Visitors, and Chrissy in the musical Hair. Hewitt was also an active member of student government, and went on to become the school's Student Council President. She was also awarded an internship with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, with whom she worked on developing educational programs. At seventeen, Hewitt became an official contestant for NBC's The Voice, though the teams filled up before her audition was scheduled to take place. She then graduated from Booker T. a recipient of one of two administered Principal's Awards.

In 2016, Hewitt moved to New York City to begin her studies at Juilliard under the tutelage of the late Sanford Sylvan, and of William Burden. During her time there, she performed roles including Miles in The Turn of the Screw, the Spirit in the French, English, and American tour of Dido and Aeneas, Blanche de la Force in a devised work entitled There's Blood Between Us, based on Dialogues of the Carmelites, and Mistress Quickly in a devised work based on Die Lustigen Weiber von Windsor. Outside of school, in 2018, she joined the New York Songwriters Circle, performed her first showcase at The Bitter End and won second place in the NYC Mayor's Office of Media and Entertainment My NYC Song Contest. Hewitt was afforded other opportunities in venues such as National Sawdust, Le Château de Versailles, and Holland Park. She also worked with student composers to develop new works, performed in multiple new music centric recitals, and started her formal music production education and work in the school's Center for Innovation in the Arts. She was a Gluck Fellow, for which she performed at dozens of care centers and hospitals across all New York City boroughs. Her culminating senior recital, WOMAN, featured work by female composers from the 20th & 21st centuries, including herself.

Since graduating from Juilliard, Hewitt has worked with virtual and in-person companies and projects to develop new works across the world, including The American Opera Project, Opera Harmony, National Sawdust, The Stone, BeComEnsemble, Artpark, Experiments in Opera. For the latter, she created the title role in Everything for Dawn, which premiered on All Arts in October 2022, and wrote the libretto for Mischief (or Rathattan) in their upcoming evening of short operas, Five Ways to Die. She was commissioned by The Peace Studio to translate, produce, and record an original song with Corsican artist Petru Canon. The resulting work, Dì Mi L'Amore, can be heard during the ending credits of Conversations that #OfferPeace with world leaders and renowned artists in collaboration with NowThis and PBS All Arts. For her vocal contributions to work in progress Faces of God she was mentioned in Vogue Italy. In the summers of 2020 and 2021, she studied at Blue Hill, Maine's historic Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival, and was the first vocalist to do so. Hewitt released her debut self-produced EP, Unfastened, in June 2021. Hewitt composed music for Juilliard Drama Short Film Old Times, which premiered at Film at Lincoln Center and won awards at the Soho International Film Festival in 2023. She recently performed the role of Marina in Katie: The Strongest of the Strong under the direction of Mary Birnbaum with Opera Saratoga. Dreamcrossed, another Juilliard Drama short film featuring her scoring, with a screenplay by Noah Haidle and directed by Zoey Martinson, premiered in May at Film at Lincoln Center.  

About Robin Steitz
Robin Steitz is a Burmese-American soprano from Washington, DC who has established herself in both contemporary and classical spaces as a sensitive and versatile performing artist.  Highlights from recent seasons include performances of ‘Flora’ in Turn of the Screw (Opera Baltimore); ‘Susanna’ in Le Nozze di Figaro (OperaDelaware); ‘Papagena’ in Die Zauberflöte (Northern Lights Music Festival); and ‘Giulia’ in Rossini’s La scala di seta (Opera Southwest). She was a Voice Fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center in 2018-19, where she most notably appeared as the ‘Cricket’ in the American premiere of Richard Ayres’ opera The Cricket Recovers, conducted by Thomas Adès. This season, Robin premiered John Andrew Wilhite-Hannisdal’s chamber work Bristol Silence at the Motvind Jazz Festival in Oslo, Norway, and looks forward to singing the premiere of Matthew Rickett’s complete Swallow Songs with Piano Lunaire in October.

About Theo Hayes
Elizabeth Hayes (Mezzo-soprano) is an opera singer committed to unlearning and dismantling the harmful and oppressive systems within the classical music and operatic worlds. Elizabeth received her bachelor of music degree with a focus in vocal performance from the University of Connecticut in 2015. Since graduating, she has performed with professional regional opera companies and classical music programs in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Colorado, and Paris, France. Elizabeth has twice won first place in the Advanced Division of National Association of Teachers of Singing and in 2020 and won second place in the Denver Lyric Opera Guild Colorado-wide operatic singers competition.

Elizabeth is currently a voice instructor with Parlando School of Musical Arts and Buffalo Music Club and believes in the power of the arts to unite communities and create positive change. Elizabeth seeks to be a part of the reinvention of opera to push boundaries and radicalize the traditional landscape.

About Gregory Feldmann
Hailed for his "fresh and resonant voice" (Seen and Heard International), baritone Gregory Feldmann is a rising artist on opera and recital stages alike. He is currently a member of the 2023-24 International Opera Studio of Opernhaus Zürich, where he will appear in Verdí’s Macbeth, Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd, and Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

A passionate recitalist, Feldmann enjoys a "luminous” collaboration with pianist Nathaniel LaNasa (Oberon's Grove). The duo have given recitals in venues worldwide, including Carnegie Hall, Wigmore Hall, the Royaumont Abbey, and the Musée d’Orsay. Their recent project American Icons explores the experiences of people living in the shadows of national monuments and myths, and has featured commissions from composers Shawn Chang, Molly Joyce, Matthew Ricketts, and Jorell Williams. He made his Zürich recital debut with Elaine Fukunaga and Klassifest last June, presenting Time as enemy, time as friend, a lyrical reflection on one’s relationship to time’s movement with songs by Korngold, Ginastera, Poulenc, and more.
About Steven Palacio

Dynamic Colombian-American bassoonist Steven Palacio invites audiences to reimagine the classical music concert experience through energetic presentations of the instrumental repertoire and experimentation with cross-genre programming. Steven is committed to bringing the works of living composers to life with the commissioning of solo and chamber music works. A champion of living composers, he frequently performs the work of composers such as Valerie Coleman, Viet Cuong, Michael Daugherty, Jeff Scott, Carlos Simon, and Joel Thompson, among others.

Steven is acting Principal Bassoon of the Cayuga Chamber Orchestra and enjoys an active freelance career previously appearing with the Seattle, Charlotte, Albany, Hunttsville and New Haven Symphonies as well as with the Las Vegas Philharmonic. In the new music space, Steven has performed with the League of Composers Orchestra, The Orchestra Now (TōN), and Juilliard's AXIOM for which he was a part of a documentary by the BBC featuring the life and work of composer Steve Reich. 

When not performing, Mr. Palacio is the West Coast Agent at MKI Artists and holds a Master of Music degree from The Juilliard School, an Artist Diploma from the Glenn Gould School of The Royal Conservatory of Music (Canada), a Bachelor of Science in International Affairs & a Bachelor of Music with honors from The Florida State University. 

About New York Festival of Song
Now in its 37th 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.

Their latest endeavor is NYFOS Records, which released its first album (From Rags to Riches, with Stephanie Blythe and William Burden) in January of 2022. Since then, NYFOS Records has released Paul Bowles’s A Picnic Cantata (2022) featuring the vocal talent of sopranos Amy Owens and Chelsea Shephard, mezzo-sopranos Amanda Lynn Bottoms and Naomi Louisa O’Connell, and percussionist Barry Centanni, together with NYFOS Artistic Director Steven Blier and co-founder Michael Barrett on piano; Black & Blue (2023), the debut solo album of British-American tenor Joshua Blue performing together with Steven Blier on piano; 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 compilation of guest artists performing together with Steven Blier, spanning over 20 years of memorable moments and voices. 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, and now the Rubin Museum 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 17th year); Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts (its 17th year in March 2025); 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.

About Steven Blier
Steven Blier is the Artistic Director of the New York Festival of Song (NYFOS), which he co-founded in 1988 with Michael Barrett. Since the Festival’s inception, he has programmed, performed, translated and annotated more than 150 vocal recitals with repertoire spanning the entire range of American song, art song from Schubert to Szymanowski, and popular song from early vaudeville to Lennon-McCartney. NYFOS has also made in-depth explorations of music from Spain, Latin America, Scandinavia and Russia. New York Magazine gave NYFOS its award for Best Classical Programming, while Opera News proclaimed Blier “the coolest dude in town” and in December 2014, Musical America included him as one of 30 top industry professionals in their feature article, “Profiles in Courage.”

Mr. Blier enjoys an eminent career as an accompanist and vocal coach. His recital partners have included Michael Spyres, Renée Fleming, Cecilia Bartoli, Samuel Ramey, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, Susan Graham, Jessye Norman, and José van Dam, in venues ranging from Carnegie Hall to La Scala. He is also on the faculty of The Juilliard School and has been active in encouraging young recitalists at summer programs, including the Wolf Trap Opera Company, the Steans Institute at Ravinia, Santa Fe Opera, and the San Francisco Opera Center. Many of his former students, including  Julia Bullock, Stephanie Blythe, Sasha Cooke, Paul Appleby, Dina Kuznetsova, Corinne Winters, and Kate Lindsey, have gone on to be valued recital colleagues and sought-after stars on the opera and concert stage. In keeping the traditions of American music alive, he has brought back to the stage many of the rarely heard songs of George Gershwin, Harold Arlen, Kurt Weill and Cole Porter. He has also played ragtime, blues and stride piano evenings with John Musto. A champion of American art song, he has premiered works of John Corigliano, Paul Moravec, Ned Rorem, William Bolcom, Mark Adamo, John Musto, Richard Danielpour, Tobias Picker, Robert Beaser, Lowell Liebermann, Harold Meltzer, and Lee Hoiby, many of which were commissioned by NYFOS.

Mr. Blier’s extensive discography includes the premiere recording of Leonard Bernstein’s Arias and Barcarolles (Koch International), which won a Grammy Award; Spanish Love Songs (Bridge Records), recorded live at the Caramoor International Music Festival with Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, Joseph Kaiser, and Michael Barrett; the world premiere recording of Bastianello (John Musto) and Lucrezia (William Bolcom), a double bill of one-act comic operas set to librettos by Mark Campbell; and Quiet Please, an album of jazz standards with vocalist Darius de Haas, and Canción amorosa, a CD of Spanish songs with soprano Corinne Winters. His latest releases for NYFOS Records include Black & Blue (2023), with British-American tenor Joshua Blue; Mi País: Songs of Argentina (2023) with bass-baritone Federico De Michelis; and NYFOS Records: The Singles, Vol. 1 (2024), a compilation of guest artists performing together with Steven Blier, spanning over 20 years of memorable moments and voices.

A native New Yorker, he received a Bachelor’s Degree with Honors in English Literature at Yale University, where he studied piano with Alexander Farkas. He completed his musical studies in New York with Martin Isepp and Paul Jacobs. Mr. Blier is a Yamaha Artist.

Images at top of release provided by the artists

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