New York Festival of Song,
Steven Blier, artistic director & pianist, Michael Barrett, assoc. artistic director,
Carolyn Betty, soprano, Sacha Cooke, mezzo-soprano, Jeremy Little, tenor
2:00 pm Saturday, November 11, 2006

Carolyn Betty

This season, Ms. Betty returns to the Pittsburgh Opera as First Lady in Die Zauberflöte. She most recently appeared there as Fiordiligi in Cosi fan tutte and Micaela in Carmen.  Other recent opera engagements have included Anna Maurrant in Kurt Weill’s Street Scene, Nanny in Miss Havisham’s Fire and Annina in La Traviata at the Opera Theater of Saint Louis; Vitellia in La Clemenza di Tito and Anna Maurrant at the Wolf Trap Opera;. roles in the Opera Company of Philadelphia’s productions of Aida, La Traviata, Il barbiere di Siviglia and Susannah; and the title role of Vanessa and Fiordiligi at the Curtis Institute of Music.

A recent graduate of the Pittsburgh Opera Center, Ms. Betty’s roles there included Vitellia, the Fifth  Maidservant in Elektra, and  Amore and Melanto in Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria.

In concert this season, Ms. Betty performs Mendelsssohn’s Incidental Music to A Midsummer Night's Dream with the National Symphony Orchestra.  Ms. Betty recently appeared at the Hollywood Bowl in a concert performance of Götterdämmerung with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra in a performance of Howard Shore’s The Lord of the Rings Symphony. Her other concert engagements have included First Flowermaiden in Parsifal with Pierre Boulez, and Dvořák duets with Iván Fischer at the Los Angeles Philharmonic; Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with Mariss Jansons and the Pittsburgh Symphony; Rosalinde in selections from Die Fledermaus withthe National Symphony Orchestra; Handel’s Messiah with the Baltimore Symphony; and recitals with Stephen Blier with both The New York Festival of Song and Wolf Trap Opera.

A Wilmington, Delaware native, Ms. Betty was a winner of the 2002 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. Her other awards include the 2006 George London/Kirsten Flagstad Memorial award, a 2004 Richard Tucker Study Grant, the 2000 Richard Gaddes Career Grant, a 2002 Sullivan Award, and a 2003 Shoshana Foundation Award. 

Sasha Cooke

Mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke returns to New York Festival of Song after appearing in the Godmothers of Song program last season.  Her current opera roles include Charlotte in Werther, Dorabella in Così fan tutte, Composer in Ariadne auf Naxos and Endimione in La Calisto.  She made her Carnegie Hall debut last year with the Oratorio Society of New York, in whose annual competition she placed third in 2005.  In December 2006, she returns to Carnegie Hall with the Oratorio Society in Handel’s Messiah.  Other performances during the 2006–2007 season include Chausson's Poème de l'amour et la mer at the Miller Theater, both J.S. and C.P.E. Bachs' Magnificats, Seattle Opera's Young Artist production of Falstaff and The Marilyn Horne Foundation Annual Recital in January 2007.
Ms. Cooke received degrees from The Juilliard School and Rice University. During her time at Juilliard, she performed with the New Juilliard Ensemble on several occasions, one being the American premiere of Valentin Silvestrov's Ode to a Nightingale.  Other concert appearances include Stravinsky's Les Noces, Mozart's Mass in C Minor and Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky.  She has attended Music Academy of the West, Aspen Music Festival, Ravinia Steans Institute and Central City Opera as an Apprentice Artist singing in Paul Bunyan and Madama Butterfly.
In 2006, Ms. Cooke placed third in the Licia Albanese-Puccini Foundation Competition and won first prize with the Bach Choir of Bethlehem.  She appears with New York Festival of Song in cooperation with The Metropolitan Opera Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, where she is currently in her first year.

Jeremy Little

Tenor Jeremy Little has performed throughout the United States. In opera, he has been seen as Alfredo in La Traviata, Edgardo in Lucia di Lammermoor, Tamino in The Magic Flute, Ernesto in Don Pasquale,Almaviva in Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Fenton in Falstaff,Lysander in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Camille in The Merry Widow, and Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni, performing with such companies as Opera Theater of St. Louis, Des Moines Metro Opera, San Francisco Opera’s Merola Program, Aspen Opera Theater Company, Pensacola Opera, Opera Southwest, and Mobile Opera.  He created the title role in Lowell Liebermann’s Miss Lonelyhearts, commissioned by the Juilliard Opera Center for their centennial year celebration and sang the role of Eurimedes in the American premier of Telemann’s Orfeo with Wolf Trap Opera.
In concert and oratorio, Mr. Little has been heard as the soloist in Mozart’s Requiem and Solemn Vespers, Handel’s Messiah, Bach’s Magnificat, Verdi’s Requiem, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Honegger’s King David, Orff’s Carmina Burana, Bernstein’s Chicester Psalms, and Britten’s Serenade for Tenor, Horn, and Strings, and has performed with the San Francisco Opera Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra, the Mississippi Symphony Orchestra, the Mobile Symphony, the Acadienne Symphony, the Delta Symphony, and the LSU Symphony. In San Francisco and New York City, Mr. Little has appeared in concert with pianist Steven Blier in the NYFOS program A Delicate Drama: Songs of the Opera Composers, and in Juilliard’s 100 Years of Juilliard Composers in Song.

Steven Blier

The New York Festival of Song’s artistic director Steven Blier also enjoys an eminent career as an accompanist and vocal coach. Among the many artists he has partnered in recital are Samuel Ramey, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, Susan Graham, Frederica von Stade, Jessye Norman, Wolfgang Holzmair, Susanne Mentzer, Sylvia McNair and Arlene Augér. In concert with Renée Fleming, he has performed throughout North America and Europe, including recitals at Carnegie Hall, La Scala, Milan, and a Live From Lincoln Center telecast. His collaboration with Cecilia Bartoli began in 1994, and has included an appearance at Carnegie Hall where Mr. Blier played both piano and harpsichord.

Mr. Blier co-founded the New York Festival of Song (NYFOS) in 1988 with Michael Barrett. Since the Festival’s inception he has programmed, performed, translated and annotated over ninety 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. In the 2003-2004 season, the series began a new partnership with the Kaufman Center’s Merkin Concert Hall, where all six concerts played to sold-out houses.

In keeping the traditions of American music alive, Mr. Blier has brought back to the stage many of the rarely heard songs of 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 music, he has premiered works of John Corigliano, Ned Rorem, William Bolcom, John Musto, Richard Danielpour, Tobias Picker, Robert Beaser, and Lee Hoiby, many of which were commissioned by NYFOS.

His discography includes the premiere recording of Leonard Bernstein’s Arias and Barcarolles (Koch International), which won a Grammy Award; the NYFOS discs of Blitzstein, Gershwin, and German Lieder (Unquiet Peace); Gershwin’s Lady Be Good! (Nonesuch Records); four albums of songs by Charles Ives in partnership with baritone William Sharp (Albany Records); and first recordings of music by Busoni and Borodin with cellist Dorothy Lawson (Koch International). In October 1999, New World Records issued the Grammy-nominated premiere recording of Ned Rorem’s full-length song cycle Evidence of Things Not Seen, commissioned by NYFOS and the Library of Congress. His latest release is The Land Where the Good Songs Go with Sylvia McNair and Hal Cazalet, celebrating P.G. Wodehouse’s collaborations with Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, George Gershwin, and Ivor Novello.

Mr. Blier is on the faculty of the Juilliard School, and has been active in encouraging young recitalists at the summer programs including the Wolf Trap Opera Company and the San Francisco Opera Center. As a broadcaster and writer, he has appeared both as an essayist and quizmaster on the Metropolitan Opera broadcast intermissions. His writings on opera have been featured in recent issues of Opera News Magazine and the Yale Review. A native New Yorker, he received an Honors Degree in English Literature at Yale University, where he studied piano under Alexander Farkas. He completed his musical studies in New York with Martin Isepp and Paul Jacobs.