Stephen Blier, Song, and FSH

Justin Davidson's recent article on Steven Blier in New York Magazine sheds some light on one of New York's most famous vocal coaches. I particularly like his diet of one new song a day:

Today, he still tries to encounter at least one new song every day. YouTube helps. So do a network of advisers and his own meandering taste, which embraces pretty much anything that can be delivered effectively by a voice and a piano: Norwegian art songs, Bruce Springsteen’s “Fire,” Cuban ballads, Broadway tunes, zarzuela arias. What separates the ones that interest him from those that don’t is not style, but a nugget of emotional intensity. “A song is the closest thing I know in waking life to dreaming,” he says. “It’s a coded version of reality. It’s not like playing a scene from Chekhov, where you’re trying to look like you’re having a tea party or a nervous breakdown. Instead, you’re enacting a coded, ritualized version of that moment, and somehow everyone in the hall is dreaming along with you.”

What many people don`t realize is the difficulty with which Blier works because of Facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy, its progress confining him to a wheelchair.  Through it all, he works to bring to life the often-mistaken-for-dead art of the song recital and the singers who adore the genre. Here is Blier talking about his brainchild the New York Festival of Song: