New York Festival of Song (NYFOS) presents the debut solo album of the rising star American baritone Theo Hoffman, a student of the late Sanford Sylvan and an alumnus of the Ravinia Steans Music Institute, in an adventurous yet appealing program that pairs Schubert songs with Beatles songs (by Lennon-McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison) on similar themes.
Hoffman tells WFMT, “adventurous programming means the audience gets something they didn’t even know they wanted … We want the audience to shed their pre-conceived notions of both of these artists and just embrace that these are both some of the greatest musical storytellers of all time.”
The baritone’s collaborators include Grammy award-winning soprano Julia Bullock, tenor Andrew Owens, guitarist Rupert Boyd (for Schubert), guitarist Alex Levine (for the Beatles), pianist Kunal Lahiry, and NYFOS co-founder and pianist Steven Blier. The album is set to be released on January 31, the birthday of Franz Schubert.