A year ago, as I was preparing my memorial Countermelody episode dedicated to Maria Ewing I was struck anew at just how naturally she had mastered the often messy crossover genre. Perhaps thats bec

This week I have been tantalizing my followers with the promise of a tall, dark, handsome singer who was born on January 1. I shall keep you in suspense no longer: he is the great Polish baritone Andr

For the last episode of 2022, I begin a series of episodes which was one of the reasons I began Countermelody in the fall of 2019: a celebration of great singing from great singers in the late years o

Todays episode is a celebration of the Texas-born, German-assimilated soprano Helen Donath. Very few singers can boast of a career lasting more than 50 years which yielded such consistently superb vo

Ive heard and enjoyed many a German lyric tenor, but if there was ever a greater one than Fritz Wunderlich (26 September 1930 17 September 1966), Ive never heard him! What is it about this singer,

This week is a continuation of my memorial tribute to my dear friend and colleague Susan May Schneider, who died last week after a long struggle with cancer. Susans husband Gary, a composer and condu

This week is the first of a series of episodes focusing on songs with orchestral accompaniment. The genre is almost a contradiction in terms: the intimacy and textual focus of art song with the someti

Greetings to all from my former home of Manhattan! Upon landing here a week ago, I was greeted by the news of the death of Ned Rorem, the man previously known as Americas Greatest Living Composer,

Tomorrow morning I leave for three weeks and Ive been desperately trying to come up with topics that would be a bit easier to produce while Im away. What could be easier than birthdays for this mont

Earlier this year, in an episode entitled Women of Color Sing Mahler, I provided many of my listeners to their first exposure to the Mexican contralto Oralia Domnguez (25 October 1925 - 25 November