Steven Blier is an American pianist, recital accompanist, musicologist, and, since 1992, a faculty member in the Department of Vocal Arts at The Juilliard School. [1] in New York City. He is the artistic director and co-founder of the New York Festival of Song (NYFOS) [2] with former Chief Executive and General Director of Caramoor, Michael Barrett. [3] Blier was also a casting adviser at the New York City Opera [4] and a regular performer at Wolf Trap [5] and Caramoor. [6] [7] He has been active in encouraging young recitalists at summer programs, including the Wolf Trap Opera Company, [8] [9] the Steans Music Institute at Ravinia, [10] the Santa Fe Opera, and the San Francisco Opera Center. [11] He has written articles for Opera News and The Yale Review. [12]
The New York Festival of Song was founded in 1988 with the motto "No song is safe from us" and is one of Blier's signature accomplishments; he has produced more than 140 recitals for the nonprofit arts organization. Pulitzer Prize-winning classical music critic Justin Davidson called NYFOS "the oldest permanent floating song party in New York". [13] Blier programs NYFOS concerts "...on the democratic premise that all songs -- from Brahms to Broadway to the Beatles -- are created equal. In place of the formality of the traditional recital, the festival offers groups of good young singers in smart, offbeat programs, each organized around a theme." [14] He is known for his well-researched and literate program notes, translations of lyrics from a variety of languages, and his onstage presence and wit as emcee, raconteur and pianist. He says that "a concert should use music to get you close to something in an emotional and intellectual way.” [15] Blier emphasizes emotional intensity, both in his choice of songs and his coaching of the singers who work with him: “A song is the closest thing I know in waking life to dreaming. It’s a coded version of reality. It’s not like playing a scene from Chekhov, where you’re trying to look like you’re having a tea party or a nervous breakdown. Instead, you’re enacting a coded, ritualized version of that moment, and somehow everyone in the hall is dreaming along with you.” [16]
Blier is a major proponent of contemporary art song and has programmed many new works including those by John Musto, [17] [18] Ned Rorem, [19] Roberto Sierra, and Clarice Assad, [20] among many others. A review of a program of Polish art song entitled "Warsaw Serenade" [21] noted that a "broader existential approach seems to inform the uncommonly eloquent programs assembled and performed by the New York Festival of Song. Art songs here are celebrated for the sensual pleasures they bring but also for the improbably numerous ways in which they open out onto larger worlds of history, poetry, and biography, distant geographic landscapes and the veiled interior regions within...[I]t was Blier whose printed essay and spoken commentary, marbled with playful lines of wit, erudition and anecdote, gave the program its distinctive personal touch." [22]
Blier was born November 25, 1951, in New York City. His parents were Josephine Berg Blier and Julius Blier. [23] He received a bachelor's degree with Honors in English Literature at Yale University, where he studied piano with Alexander Farkas. [24] He continued his studies in New York with Matin Isepp, Paul Jacobs, and Janine Reiss.
He is married to James S. Russell, an architecture writer and critic, [25] former professor at the Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture at City College of New York [26] and frequent contributor to The New York Times, Architectural Record, and The Economist. Russell is the author of the book, The Agile City: Building Well-being and Wealth in an Era of Climate Change [27]
Blier lives with facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy and supports fundraisers for the FSHD Society. [28] [29]
The New York Times Op Ed columnist Joe Nocera wrote: "I had never heard anything like a NYFOS concert — still haven’t, really. There are no microphones; Blier believes deeply that unmiked music creates a more intimate experience. At a NYFOS concert, the lyrics matter as much as the music." [37]
Washington Post critic Ronald Broun wrote: "A few words of high praise are utterly inadequate to describe what Steven Blier accomplished Saturday night at the Barns of Wolf Trap. Start with this: Blier knows everything about the mechanics and art of singing, songs and songwriting (he draws no distinction between classical and pop), and piano accompaniment. He is a passionate, indefatigable researcher and scholar who haunts libraries, finds wonderful songs that time has obliterated and gives them new life." [38]
Kathleen Deanna Battle is an American operatic soprano known for her distinctive vocal range and tone. Born in Portsmouth, Ohio, Battle initially became known for her work within the concert repertoire through performances with major orchestras during the early and mid-1970s. She made her opera debut in 1975. Battle expanded her repertoire into lyric soprano and coloratura soprano roles during the 1980s and early 1990s, until her eventual dismissal from the Metropolitan Opera in 1994. She later has focused on recording and the concert stage. After a 22-year absence from the Met, Battle performed a concert of spirituals at the Metropolitan Opera House in November 2016.
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The Wolf Trap Opera Company was founded in 1971 as part of the program of the Wolf Trap Foundation located near the Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts in Fairfax County, Virginia. The company is a residency and training program for aspiring opera professionals, with its major production being a summer opera festival.
The Caramoor Summer Music Festival is a music festival founded in 1945 that is held on the 90-acre (360,000 m2) estate of the Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts, which includes a Mediterranean-style stucco villa and is located about 50 miles (80 km) north of New York City in Katonah, New York.
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The New York Festival of Song (NYFOS) presents an annual series of concerts in New York City dedicated to the art of song, classical, modern and popular. In addition, this organization commissions new works and recordings, including the Grammy Award-winning recording of Leonard Bernstein's Arias and Barcarolles (Koch), and the Grammy-nominated recording of Ned Rorem's Evidence of Things Not Seen.
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John Musto is an American composer and pianist. As a composer, he is active in opera, orchestral and chamber music, song, vocal ensemble, and solo piano works. As a pianist, he performs frequently as a soloist, alone and with orchestra, as a chamber musician, and with singers.
Elaine Bonazzi was an American operatic mezzo-soprano who had an active international career from the 1950s through the 1990s. A singer with an unusually broad repertoire that encompassed both classical and contemporary works, she notably created roles in the world premieres of operas by composers Dominick Argento, David Carlson, Carlisle Floyd, Gian Carlo Menotti, Thomas Pasatieri, and Ned Rorem. In the United States she was particularly active with the New York City Opera, the Santa Fe Opera, and the Washington National Opera.
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