Steven Blier

Steven Blier was born in New York City and is the co-founder and artistic director of the New York Festival of Song (premiere season 1988-89) and has served as programmer/translator/pianist/arranger of more than 130 of its programs. He has been a recital accompanist for singers including Cecilia Bartoli, Jessye Norman, Wolfgang Holzmair, Renée Fleming, Samuel Ramey, Susan Graham, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, Dwayne Croft, Paul Groves, Susanne Mentzer, June Anderson, Arleen Augér, Roberta Peters, and Kurt Ollmann, among others.

Blier has recorded on the Koch, New World, Nonesuch, Albany, RCA, and Musicmasters labels and won a Grammy Award in 1990 and was nominated for Grammy Awards in 1999 and 1989. His recorded repertoire includes works by Ives, Gershwin, Weill, Blitzstein, Busoni, Granados, Wolf, Kern, and Rorem (Evidence of Things Not Seen, premiere). He has given master classes around the U.S. in song repertoire, and has been a feature writer for Opera News magazine since 1996.

Blier has been guest faculty/recitalist at the Wolf Trap Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Chautauqua Festival, and San Francisco Opera, and was a faculty member at the State University of New York—Purchase from 1986 to 1994 and Aspen Music Festival from 1978 to 1981. He holds a BA degree from Yale University, summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa. He studied piano with Miriam Gideon, Alexander Farkas, Paul Jacobs, and Martin Isepp.