NYFOS Next 2026-2027
The series for new song
Curated by Nathaniel LaNasa
“New York Festival of Song’s new music series showed … that the ancient form is alive and very much kicking in the hands of the current generation of practitioners.”
— David Wolfson in Cadenza
“Invaluable … a testament to the variety of ways composers today are treating the voice.” — The New York Times
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3-program subscriptions are available at $60 — over 30% off the single ticket price!
All programs begin at 3PM at The Theater at 150 W 17th Street
Sun, Sep 27, 2026, 3pm
A Perfect Rose: Dorothy Parker Songs
Paulina Swierczek and Kerrigan Bigelow, sopranos; Alec Manasse, clarinet
Feared for her “caustic” wit and dismissed for her “flapper verse,” Dorothy Parker’s words have proved irresistible to composers from the Jazz Age through the present. This concert features her poems refracted through a modern lens in works by Danika Lorén and Ricky Ian Gordon, as well as a theatrical gloss on one of Parker’s short stories, a new arrangement of her only jazz standard, “I Wished on the Moon,” and four brand new Parker songs by Jeremy Beck.
Sun, Nov 15, 2026, 3pm
This Now Naked Life
Shannon Keegan, mezzo-soprano and leiken, vocalist
In songs about our machines, our home, and our finitude, this concert contrasts humanity’s reach with its grasp. Daniel Pesca’s “Terra Incognita” imagines four stages in the process of lunar exploration; works by Thomas Kotcheff and Joel Balzun look more closely at natural processes of wonder closer to home. A premiere of selections from leiken’s “I Have Been the Blue Salmon,” from their forthcoming evening length work “Ars moriendi” proposes a quietly soulful relationship with limitation.
Sun, May 23, 2027, 3pm
If We Can Love in This Lifetime
Indyana Schneider, mezzo-soprano and Michael Kelly, baritone
Anchored by queer literary lineages originating in the deep past, this concert features collaborations between composers and singers who write. Novelist and mezzo-soprano Indyana Schneider presents the world premiere of her collaboration with Cecilia Livingston on her own texts and Sappho fragments. Michael Kelly presents John Glover’s cycle, “After Him,” with texts by Richard Barnfield (Elizabethan England), Frank O’Hara, and Kelly himself.
Single tickets ($30) and student tickets ($10) will go on sale here on August 17.
Seating for the NYFOS Next series is general admission. No physical tickets will be used for this program; attendees’ names will be on a list at the door. Walk-up ticket buyers welcome!
The NYFOS Next series is funded, in part, by a grant from The Aaron Copland Fund for Music; the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature; and by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.
NYFOS Next is New York Festival of Song’s “invaluable contemporary-music series” (The New Yorker). With an emphasis on spontaneity, novelty, and collaboration, NYFOS Next offers a forum for song composers to share their work, and gives audiences an intimate encounter with the creative process, as new songs are presented in an informal setting. Composers and performers are invited to curate and host their own programs, showcasing their own work and the works of their peers, students or mentors. Past curators include Mark Adamo, Clarice Assad, Mark Campbell, Christopher Cerrone, Mohammed Fairouz, Gregory Feldmann, Gabriela Lena Frank, Kyle Jarrow (with Lauren Worsham), Gabriel Kahane, Laura Kaminsky, Laura Karpman & Nora Kroll-Rosenbaum, Carla Kilhstedt, Phil Kline, Lowell Liebermann, David T. Little, Harold Meltzer, Paul Moravec, John Musto, Russell Platt, Kevin Puts, Bright Sheng, and Joseph Thalken. Nathaniel LaNasa returns as the curator of the 26-27 NYFOS Next series.