When I was a child, my favorite part of every lesson was the last five minutes when I got to play duets with my teacher. We’d rip through Schubert’s Marche Militaire or the four-hand piano reduction of Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony, and I was in heaven. Sure, I liked playing my solo pieces well enough, but I really sprang to life the minute I was part of a duo. Today’s program, Love Songs in 176 Keys, was born out of that love for piano duets: four chapters, each one introduced by a four-hand overture.  

In 2014, before the sixth season of Vocal Rising Stars, Caramoor asked me to enlarge the residency to include a pianist alongside the quartet of singers. Initially, I was leery about having another musical mouth to feed during an already-pressured week, but I quickly found that I loved working with younger pianists who were entering my collaborative profession. We’ve been blessed with a series of wonderful keyboard players over the ears, all of whom have gone on to distinguished careers in music—at major opera houses, on conservatory faculties, and of course, on the recital stage.  

Today I’m joined by my Associate Director, Bénédicte Jourdois, a masterful pianist and vocal coach touched with genius; and our apprentice, Francesco Barfoed, a young man with a poet’s sensitivity for the keyboard. After so many months playing the piano in isolation during the pandemic, it is a special luxury to have them as musical partners.  

The concert’s title, Love Songs in 176 Keys, goes on to specify Four Hands (I think we covered that), Four Voices (the usual spectrum), and Four Cultures. Ah, but which cultures? It didn’t take too long to decide. Brahms’s Liebeslieder Waltzes, written for four voices and four hands, was a sine qua non; with Bénédicte Jourdois on board, we’d certainly want a group of French songs; and with me on board, a selection of Spanish songs—one of my passions. To end the show, a selection of American songs for our American audience. It has also been wonderful to introduce that repertoire to our Korean and Ecuadorean singers and our Danish pianist. 

Some of the music on the program belongs to the standard repertoire — not just the Brahms waltzes, a perennial joy, but all four piano duets (by Dvorak, Bizet, Granados, and Gershwin), each of them beloved and iconic.  

Many of the song composers will also be familiar to concert-goers — Francis Poulenc (Dialogues of the Carmelites), Cy Coleman (Sweet Charity), Gabriel Fauré (Pavane), Darius Milhaud (Scaramouche), Arthur Schwartz (Dancing in the Dark), Stephen Sondheim (A Little Night Music), and John Corigliano (The Red Violin). Of course, in true NYFOS style, the pieces we’ve chosen come from the “hidden gem” category—even Bénédicte, an avowed Poulenc-maven, had never heard his lovely duet Colloque until it made its way onto our playlist, nor had she ever encountered Milhaud’s “jazz-shimmy” Caramel mou. 

The rest of the composers might benefit from some introduction. The chansonnier Serge Gainsbourg was a superstar in France, but he is less well-known in America. Few of his songs have been translated, unlike those of his Belgian contemporary, Jacques Brel, who became famous in America through a long-running off-Broadway revue of his songs. At home, Gainsbourg was considered the most important songwriter of his time, and he also made his mark as a film maker and actor. Above all Gainsbourg was a powerful lyricist, scandalous and provocative. His 1963 song, La Javanaise, topped the French charts.  

Albert Roussel spoke a musical language unlike anyone else. He spent his early years in the French navy and was able to hear indigenous music all over the world. These sounds went on to permeate his compositional vocabulary, particularly the modes and instruments of Asia. Roussel’s mélodies often use jangly, acerbic dissonances and odd clusters —impressionism etched with needles, not soft brushes. Take Sarabande, written in 1919, an elegant song about an outdoor tryst, set to an insistent, discordant motif in the minor mode. The poem is tender, while the music is prickly, somewhat unsettling. The quirky combination of sweetness and roughness makes for a very erotic song. 

It was a special pleasure to introduce my young cast to the Spanish composers on the program. Joaquín Turina was the most familiar name for them — a couple of his splashy song cycles typically make the rounds of conservatory recitals. Turina knew how to supply singers and pianists with colorful, almost cinematic music. He’s the go-to guy for any soprano or tenor with an easy upper register and a bit of moxie. Turina was born in the south of Spain — Seville —which is the most Arabic part of the peninsula. You can always hear the Andalusian roots of his music. 

Eduardo Toldrà and his student Xavier Montsalvatge are Catalan musicians, and the elegant refinement of their songs is a testament to their Barcelona roots. In the early years of the 20th century, Barcelona became a hotbed of Spanish creativity, giving birth to several generations of significant artists. Eduardo Toldrà was among them, an important leader in his country’s development as a center for classical music. While he helped build Spain’s first major orchestras, he himself was a master of intimate musical forms. His best songs have an etherial glow that has endeared him to me — and to generations of listeners. Xavier Montsalvatge is less easy to categorize. During a career that spanned 60 years he dabbled in a gamut of styles — polytonality, electronic music, ethnomusicology. I think of him as the Picasso of music, always open to the latest influences, and yet always true to himself. But the song on today’s program, Paisatge del Montseny, reveals the true core of Montsalvatge’s art: warm and lyrical, and imbued with his unique blend of musical spice — touches of French impressionism and hints of Arabic modes.  

Jesus Guridi came from the Basque country and wrote much of his vocal music in his native tongue. Maybe that’s the reason it’s so seldom heard abroad: the Basque language is a nearly insuperable challenge for non-natives to translate and understand. Luckily, Guridi did write a couple of user-friendly song cycles in Castilian, including Seis canciones castellanas, the source of Cómo quieres que adivine. It is a devilishly clever song, with a deceptive rhythmic pattern — it’s written in ⅜ time, but the accent is almost never on the first beat of the measure. The catchy opening tune is interrupted by a pair of surprising Moorish-inflected interludes, emerging like an unexpected gold tooth in a smile.  

Zarzuela — Spanish operetta — dominated the Iberian peninsula for decades, particularly in Madrid. These popular theater pieces came in as many genres as TV shows: comic one-acts and swashbuckling full-length romances; period pieces and modern dramas; stories about country life, city life, and royal courts. The Spanish public was mad for zarzuela, and it became an industry, the sure-fire way for a talented composer to launch a career in music. Among the genre’s brightest lights was Federico Moreno Torroba, a prolific musician who eventually became the director of a touring zarzuela company. Two of his headliners were Plácido Domingo’s parents, and little Plácido went along for the ride during their sojourns in Mexico and South America. Luisa Fernanda was one of Moreno Torroba’s biggest successes, and the duet Caballero del alto plumero gives you a taste of the perennial appeal of his music.  

NYFOS was lucky enough to premiere Gabriel Kahane’s The Memory Palace, a compilation of five of his early songs. Merritt Parkway is the third song in the cycle. Gabe described those pieces as “the beginning of my finding a musical language that I felt that I could speak. It is like my Opus 1.” Its musical idioms straddle blues, German art song, and an array of 21^st century styles blended into something unique, original, and emotionally complex. Gabe was inspired by a quote from the Hungarian avant-garde composer György Ligeti: “Anything that is truly new is just two extant things that haven’t been combined before.” To wit: Merritt Parkway, a haunting tune that blends the gravity of Robert Schumann with the relaxed informality of the American Songbook.  

Love Songs in 176 Keys doesn’t quite tell 176 love stories. Still, it manages to conjure a surprising range of encounters: charming 19th-century courtship rites (The Liebeslieder Waltzes), a promising romance that fizzles all too quickly (La Javanaise), the deep and enduring union of a married couple (Tu vois le feu du soir), rapacious desire (Al val de Fuenteovejuna), a scathing put-down (What You Don’t Know About Women), and at least 50 other shades of longing. It seems that no culture ever gets tired of singing about love, that great biological, emotional, spiritual mystery that is said to make the world go round. Science may have disproved that theory, but I say otherwise. I live in a world of song, and love certainly keeps my world spinning on its axis.   

Inaugurated in the spring of 2009, Vocal Rising Stars is Caramoor’s mentoring program focusing on vocal chamber music and the art of song in recital. Singers at the advanced student and beginning professional level are invited to Caramoor to participate in an intensive week-long residency for daily coaching, rehearsals, and workshops with mentor Steven Blier and guest teaching artists. 

At Caramoor, we believe that the work leading up to a performance is of equal if not of greater importance than the concert itself and will have a lasting impact on the growth and development of young artists. Vocal Rising Stars provides singers with an opportunity to form collaborative partnerships with one another, the Caramoor staff, and the coaches who also participate in the residency. In recent years we have included a position in the program for a young pianist, to gain experience and training in the art of vocal accompaniment, while gaining knowledge of the repertoire. 

Since its inception, the program has received funding from the Terrance W. Schwab Endowment Fund for Young Vocal Artists. Created in memory of long-standing Caramoor trustee Terrance W. Schwab by his family, this endowment fund is designed to nurture and support the artistic development and careers of young vocalists outside of the operatic repertoire. 

In 2012, the program was renamed the Terrance W. Schwab Vocal Rising Stars, to honor his memory and the Schwab family’s ongoing commitment to this important program. 

To make a contribution to the Schwab Vocal Rising Stars mentoring program or to the Terrance W. Schwab Endowment Fund for Young Vocal Artists, please contact Jennifer Pace, Director of Individual Gifts, at 914.232.5035 ext. 412, or donate online at caramoor.org/support. 

Steven Blier, Artistic Director

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 produced more than 150 vocal recitals with repertoire spanning five centuries of art song and popular song, including commissioned works by Ned Rorem, William Bolcom, and many others. New York Magazine gave NYFOS its award for Best Classical Programming, while Opera News proclaimed Blier “the coolest dude in town.” 

Blier’s recital partners have included Renée Fleming, Cecilia Bartoli, Samuel Ramey, Susan Graham, Jessye Norman, Julia Bullock, and Paul Appleby, in venues ranging from Carnegie Hall to La Scala. He is currently on the faculty of The Juilliard School, and has been a guest teacher at the Wolf Trap Opera Company, Santa Fe Opera, Ravinia’s Steans Music Institute, and the San Francisco Opera Center.  

Among Blier’s wide-ranging recordings are the premiere of Leonard Bernstein’s Arias and Barcarolles (Koch International), which won a Grammy Award; and Spanish Love Songs (Bridge Records) with Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, Joseph Kaiser, and Michael Barrett. His latest releases are on NYFOS Records, which released its first album (From Rags to Riches, with Stephanie Blythe and William Burden) in January of 2022.  

A native New Yorker, Blier received a Bachelor’s Degree with Honors in English Literature at Yale University, where he studied piano with Alexander Farkas. 

Bénédicte Jourdois, Associate Director

A graduate of the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program at The Metropolitan Opera, Bénédicte Jourdois is currently on music staff at the Metropolitan Opera and on faculty at the Juilliard School.

Jourdois has performed in numerous venues in Europe and in the United States, including Alice Tully Hall and Carnegie Hall in New York and the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. 

As a coach and pianist, she has worked with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Los Angeles Opera, Chicago Lyric Ryan Opera Center, Pittsburgh Opera, Washington National Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Opera Philadelphia, Opera Saratoga, Rice University, the Chautauqua Institution voice program, the Castleton Festival, Spoleto Festival USA, and Carnegie Hall’s SongStudio. She was a faculty member at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia from 2013 to 2016 and at the Manhattan School of Music from 2011 to 2018.

Born in Paris, Jourdois holds degrees from the Conservatoire National de Region de Saint-Maur, the Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique de Lyon, Mannes College, and the Juilliard School. 

2009
Joelle Harvey, soprano
Liza Forrester, mezzo-soprano
Paul Appleby, tenor
David McFerrin, baritone

2010
Charlotte Dobbs, soprano
Rebecca Jo Loeb, mezzo-soprano
Matthew Pena, tenor
John Brancy, baritone

2011
Corinne Winters, soprano
Wallis Giunta, mezzo-soprano
Andrew Owens, tenor
Carlton Ford, baritone

2012
Meredith Lustig, soprano
Kristin Hoff, mezzo-soprano
Brenton Ryan, tenor
Eugene Chan, baritone

2013
Julia Bullock, soprano
Sarah Larsen, mezzo-soprano
Theo Lebow, tenor
Tobias Greenhalgh, baritone

2014
Olivia Betzen, soprano
Annie Rosen, mezzo-soprano
Miles Mykkanen, tenor
Theo Hoffman, baritone
Leann Osterkamp, piano

2015
Chelsea Shephard, soprano
Julia Dawson, mezzo-soprano
Alec Carlson, tenor
Shea Owens, baritone
Christopher Reynolds, piano

2016
Liv Redpath, soprano
Abigail Levis, mezzo-soprano
Galeano Salas, tenor
Justin Austin, baritone
William Kelley, piano

2017
Christine Taylor Price, soprano
Hannah Dishman, mezzo-soprano
Jack Swanson, tenor
Benjamin Dickerson, baritone
HoJae Lee, piano

2018
Madison Leonard, soprano
Kayleigh Decker, mezzo-soprano
Matthew Pearce, tenor
Greg Feldmann, baritone
Adam Rothenberg, piano

2019
Devony Smith, soprano
Gina Perregrino, mezzo-soprano
Philippe L’Espérance, tenor
Erik Van Heyningen, bass-baritone
Danny Zelibor, pianist

2020
Elaine Daiber, soprano
Siena Licht Miller, mezzo-soprano
Terrence Chin-Loy, tenor
Thomas West, baritone
Shawn Chang, piano

2021
Nicoletta Berry, soprano
Erin Wagner, mezzo-soprano
Aaron Crouch, tenor
Samuel Kidd, baritone
Grace Francis, piano