This marks the third subscription program of the New York Festival of Song. The program features songs in many languages celebrating the culturally diverse Jewish communities that flourished as the tribes of Israel spread out across the globe: Sephardic melodies arranged by Roberto Sierra; Second Avenue specialties by Irving Berlin and Abraham Ellstein; art songs by Ravel and Mahler; plus music by Leonard Bernstein and Harold Rome.
The cast of Voices of the Jewish Diaspora features soprano Dina Kuznetsova, of the San Francisco Opera, Glyndebourne Festival and Lyric Opera of Chicago, and featured in NYFOS's Obsession _ la Russe; mezzo-soprano Rinat Shaham, an internationally acclaimed Carmen and guest star with the New York City Opera, the Berlin State Opera and such orchestras as the Berlin Philharmonic and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra; and tenor and Broadway actor Steven Goldstein, a frequent performer at the New York City Opera and other major companies, a Founding Member of New York's Atlantic Theater Company, and a regular guest artist on several television series. A string quartet consists of Laura Goldberg (violin), Lisa Tipton (violin), Leslie Tomkins (viola) and Dorothy Lawson (cello). NYFOS Co-Founders and Artistic Directors Steven Blier and Michael Barrett will play piano and host the evening.
Voices of the Jewish Diaspora Program (subject to change):
Piccola Serenata- Leonard Bernstein
Des Antonius von Padua Fischpre- Gustav Mahler
Gelb rollt mir zu F‹ssen, from Twelve Persian Songs- Anton Rubenstein
From Songs from the Jewish Folk Poetry, Op. 79 Dmitri Shostakovich
1. Lament over the death of a small child
2. The Thoughtful Mother and Aunt
6. The Forsaken Father
7. Lullaby in Time of Need
11. I Linked Arms with my Husband
From Four Children's Songs, Op. 35
Ha Geshem (The Rain)- Paul Ruach
Ben Chaim (Wind)
Meyerke mayn Suhn, from Sept chants populaires- Maurice Ravel
Kaddisch, from Deux m_lodies h_braÇques
Papir Iz Doch Vays- Traditional
Volt Majn Tate Rajch Geven- Lazar Weiner
Zog Nit Keyn Mol- Hirsch Glick
Ulai laze yihie li omet- Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco
From Songs from the Diaspora- Roberto Sierra
1. De las mares altas
2. ê_chate a la mar y alcan‹alo
4. Mi suegra la negra
5. Camin‹ por altas torres
7. La Serena
Sadie Salome (Go Home)- Irving Berlin and Edgar Leslie
Meydele- Abraham Ellstein
Mene, Mene, Tekel, from Pins and Needles- Harold Rome
Curtain time is 8 PM. Tickets, priced $40 - $55, may be purchased by calling (212) 501-3330 or visiting www.kaufman-center.org.
Half-priced student tickets, as available, will be released one half-hour before curtain, and a limited number of $15 student tickets are available in advance by calling (646) 230-8380.
Merkin Concert Hall at Kaufman Center is located at 129 West 67th Street, New York, NY 10023.
For more information about New York Festival Of Song (NYFOS), please visit their website at www.nyfos.org.
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New York Festival of Song was founded in 1988 by Steven Blier and Michael Barrett. NYFOS is dedicated to creating intimate song concerts of great beauty, humor and originality, combining music, poetry, and history to entertain, educate and create community among audiences and performers. With a far-ranging repertoire of art songs, concert works and theater pieces, its thematic recitals have included programs from Brahms to the Beatles, from the nineteenth-century salons of Paris to Tin Pan Alley, from Russian art song to Argentine tangos, from sixteenth-century lute songs to new music. NYFOS particularly celebrates American song literature and culture, and specializes in premiering and commissioning new American works.
