About the Program
Swan Song
Brooklyn Art Song Society and PhiloSonia Chamber Ensemble join forces for an innovative program combining song and chamber music. Co-curated by artistic directors Mike Brofman and Stanichka Dimitrova (who also happen to be husband and wife), the program pairs some of Franz Schubert’s late masterpieces alongside correlated works by living female composers Jennifer Higdon and Cecilia Livingston.
PhiloSonia is an innovative chamber music series designed to create a personal connection between audience members and classical music. Founded by Stanichka Dimitrova, PhiloSonia is inspired by her passion for outreach and connecting to today’s audience. PhiloSonia offers an insight into established and new works from the chamber music repertoire. Through compelling programming and interactive elements listeners are guided through an in-depth exploration of a wide variety of works.
The Brooklyn Art Song Society (BASS) will enter its 16th season of first-rate music making in the Fall of 2025, having earned a reputation as one of the preeminent organizations dedicated to the vast repertoire of poetry set to music. Its mission is to preserve art song’s direct expressiveness and emotional honesty for today’s audience and future generations.
BASS has been called “a company well worth watching” by The New York Times and “superb” by New York Classical Review. BASS’s innovative and ambitious programming has reached thousands of audience members — lifelong classical music and first-time concert-goers alike. Since 2010, BASS has presented thousands of songs — nearly the entire canon. Highlights include presentations of the complete songs of Charles Ives and Hugo Wolf and annual themed festivals that range from surveys of the lieder of Franz Schubert, British song, French melodie, and songs from the two World Wars. BASS is dedicated to creating the next generation of great song composers and is the single largest commissioner of new art song working today.
Highlights from the 2025-2026 season include the six-concert festival Cycles- a landmark survey of the song cycle from Schubert to Rorem, and the sixth annual New Voices Festival, a three-concert series focused on art song in the 21st-century, featuring commissioned world premieres by Benjamin Attahir, Charlotte Bray, and Michael Djupstrom.
About the Artists
Lauded for “superb playing” and “poised, alert musicianship” by the Boston Globe, and labeled “definitely a man to watch” by London’s The Independent after his 2012 Wigmore Hall recital debut, American pianist SPENCER MYER is one of the most respected and sought-after artists on today’s concert stage.
He has been soloist with The Cleveland Orchestra, the Cape Town and Johannesburg Philharmonics, and the Indianapolis and New Haven Symphonies, among others. His 2005 tour of South Africa included a performance of Beethoven’s five piano concerti with the Chamber Orchestra of South Africa, followed by six subsequent return tours. An in-demand chamber musician, his artistic partners have included cellists Lynn Harrell and Ralph Kirshbaum, clarinetist David Shifrin, soprano Nicole Cabell, and the Jupiter, Miami and Pacifica String Quartets.
His career was launched with three important prizes: First Prize in the 2004 UNISA International Piano Competition in South Africa, the 2006 Christel DeHaan Classical Fellowship from the American Pianists Association and the Gold Medal from the 2008 New Orleans International Piano Competition. He is also a laureate of the 2005 Cleveland and Busoni International Competitions. He was a member of Astral Artists’ performance roster from 2003-2010.
Previously on the piano faculty of Boston’s Longy School of Music, Spencer Myer is currently Associate Professor of Piano at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, where he received the 2024 Trustees Teaching Award. He has released six CDs on the Steinway & Sons label — Piano Rags of William Bolcom, four discs with cellist Brian Thornton, and the Four Chopin Impromptus.
Spencer Myer is a Steinway Artist.
STANICHKA DIMITROVA, whose playing has been described as “wonderfully full in tone and exuberant in performance” by the San Francisco Classical Voice, was a winner of the 2010 Concerto Competition at Stony Brook University, which resulted in a solo performance of the Sibelius Violin Concerto. She has also been a First Prize winner in the “Barbara Krakauer Scholarship Award” Competition at the Associated Music Teachers League in New York City; “Hopes, Talents, Masters” International Competition in Dobrich, Bulgaria; “Svetoslav Obretenov” National Competition in Provadia, Bulgaria; and was a Top Prize winner of the National Competition for Austrian and German Music in Burgas, Bulgaria. Ms. Dimitrova is a graduate from the Juilliard School, where she studied with Sally Thomas. She recently received her doctoral degree at Stony Brook University, studying with Philip Setzer, Pamela Frank, Soovin Kim and Philippe Graffin. In 2017, Ms. Dimitrova made her Carnegie Hall solo debut in Weill Recital Hall under the auspices of Bulgarian Concert Evenings in New York and St. Cyril and St. Methodious International Foundation. Ms. Dimitrova is the founder and artistic director of PhiloSonia chamber music series, designed to create a personal connection between audience members and classical music. She is also a Teaching Artist for the New York Philharmonic’s Philharmonic Schools Program, where she participates in a variety of outreach activities and performances in public schools throughout New York.
As a former member of the Esperanto String Quartet, Ms. Dimitrova was invited to participate in “Yehudi Menuhin Chamber Music Festival” in San Francisco. Other festivals and summer programs she has attended include Meadowmount School of Music (New York), Sulzbach-Rosenberg International Summer Festival (Germany), International Summer Academy Vienna-Prague-Budapest (Austria), Sarasota Music Festival (Florida) and Castleton Music Festival, VA (with founder and artistic director Lorin Maazel). As a chamber musician, Ms. Dimitrova is also a founding member of the Almava Piano Trio with fellow Juilliard School graduates pianist Sookkyung Cho and cellist Sara Cortinas. She has performed with acclaimed groups such as Metropolis Ensemble, Symphony in C and New World Symphony. As a member of the world renowned Verbier Festival orchestra, Ms. Dimitrova, has performed with conductors such as James Levine, Charles Dutoit, Zubin Mehta, Esa-Pekka Salonen and Paavo Järvi, and was also invited by Maestro Dutoit to participate in his festival in Miyazaki, Japan. She has also appeared on PBS’s Live at Lincoln Center series with the Juilliard Orchestra’s performance, “A Gala Night At Alice Tully Hall”.
Pianist MICHAEL BROFMAN has earned a reputation as one of the finest vocal accompanists of his generation. He has performed over one thousand songs, from Schubert’s earliest lieder to premieres of new songs by today’s most-recognized composers. He was hailed by the New York Times as an “excellent pianist” and Feast of Music recently praised his “elegant and refined playing… exhibiting excellent touch and clean technique.” Parterre Box Blog called Mr. Brofman a “master communicator at the piano,” and Voix des Arts praised his “finesse and flexibility.” Seen and Heard International recently wrote “Brofman got to the core of each song…delving into their emotional depths.”
Recent highlights of Mr. Brofman’s performances include recitals in San Francisco with members of the SF Symphony and a recital at Northwestern University with soprano Elisabeth Marshall. With the Brooklyn Art Song Society, this season he performs works by Schubert, Foccroulle, Schoenberg, and works written for him by Benjamin Attahir, Charlotte Bray, Michael Djupstrom, James Kallembach, and Jessica Meyer.
Mr. Brofman has championed new works and has fostered relationships with many living composers, including Katherine Balch, Lembit Beecher, Tom Cipullo, Michael Djupstrom, Daniel Felsenfeld, Herschel Garfein, Mikhail Johnson, Daron Hagen, Jake Heggie, James Kallembach, Libby Larsen, Lowell Liebermann, David Ludwig, James Matheson, Reinaldo Moya, Harold Meltzer, Russell Platt, Kurt Rohde, Glen Roven, Andrew Staniland, Carlos Simon, and Scott Wheeler. In all, he has premiered over 100 songs, many dedicated to him.
Mr. Brofman is the founder and artistic director of the Brooklyn Art Song Society, an organization dedicated to the vast repertoire of poetry set to music now in its 14th season. His first CD New Voices on Roven Records includes four world-premiere recordings and was number one on Amazon’s new releases for Opera/Vocal and debuted in the top 10 of the Traditional Classical Billboard Chart. Since, he has recorded world premiere recordings of Kurt Rohde on Albany Records and Herschel Garfein for Acis Records.
Hailed for his “hearty, luxurious baritone” by Musical America, GREGORY FELDMANN is a rising artist on opera and recital stages alike. This summer, Feldmann makes his role debut in the title role of Ambroise Thomas’ Hamletat the Buxton International Festival in the UK. He reprised the role of Demetrius in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream with the Blackwater Valley Opera Festival in Lismore, Ireland in May 2025. Earlier this year, Feldmann returned to Opernhaus Zürich to make his guest debut as Elviro in Handel’s Serse, as well as his role debut as Mercutio in Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette. Feldmann was a member of Opernhaus Zürich’s International Opera Studio from 2022-24. Highlights include appearances as Moralès in Bizet’s Carmen, Demetrius in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and a Lord in Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd.
On the concert stage, Feldmann continued his collaboration with Annedore Neufeld and the Zürcher Bach Chor, making his debut in the Grosse-Saal of the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich singing in Schubert’s Missa Solemnis in March 2025. He recently joined the Sequoia Symphony Orchestra for Haydn’s Creation in April 2025 under Bruce Kiesling. In January 2024, Feldmann appeared with the Ballett Zürich in Timekeepers, singing the bass solo in Stravinsky’s Les Noces.
A passionate recitalist, Feldmann enjoys a “luminous” partnership with pianist Nathaniel LaNasa (Oberon’s Grove). Feldmann and LaNasa’s recitals have confronted national narratives and artistic legacies, with recital projects including Degenerate Music, a contrarian reimagining of the 1938 Entartete Musikexhibition in Düsseldorf. The duo presented Degenerate Music in their sold-out Carnegie Hall debut in 2019. Their most recent project, American Icons, partnered with oral historian Cynthia Tobar to explore national monuments and the communities living in their shadows. American Icons saw the premieres of songs by Shawn Chang, Molly Joyce, Matthew Ricketts, and Jorell Williams. The duo’s next program, the way home, will be presented in Buxton, England in July 2025 as part of the Buxton International Festival.
Feldmann and LaNasa have partnered with organizations including the New York Festival of Song (to premiere Iain Bell’s We Two in October 2023), Sparks and Wiry CRIES (to premiere Curtis Stewart’s Do You See the Flag? in 2021), and the Musee d’Orsay and Royaumont Foundation (to produce their first studio release of Faure’s L’horizon chimérique and Ullmann’s Liederbuch des Hafis). The duo took First Prize in the 2021 Gerda Lissner Song/Lieder Competition and the 2019 Joy in Singing International Song Competition.
Feldmann is a graduate of the Artist Diploma in Opera Studies program at the Juilliard School, where he studied with Elizabeth Bishop, Randall Scarlata, and Sanford Sylvan. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.
New York-based cellist ARI EVAN maintains an active performing career throughout North America and Europe. From 2020-2023 he lived in Brussels, Belgium, where he completed his Artist Diploma at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapelle in Belgium, under the tutelage of Gary Hoffman. Solo highlights from his time in Europe include a performance of Schumann’s Cello Concerto with the Lviv Philharmonic Orchestra, Haydn D with Royal Chamber Orchestra of Wallonia, Beethoven Triple Concerto with the Vienna Concert Orchestra, and a recital at Flagey. Ari was featured on the Chapelle’s landmark Cesar Franck CD, recording his first three piano trios with Frank Braley. Especially fond of string quartets, Ari served as guest cellist of the Quatuor MONA, performing in the Paris Philharmonie, and toured with the internationally acclaimed Rolston String Quartet through Europe, Canada, and the US. He also served as guest principal cellist with Belgium’s Ataneres Ensemble.
A versatile chamber musician, Ari has performed with many of the world’s pre-eminent artists, including Itzhak Perlman, Shumel Ashkenasi, Corina Belcea, Colin Carr, Miriam Fried, Gary Hoffman, Hsin-Yun Huang, Ani Kavafian, Robert McDonald, as well as former members of the Cleveland and Artemis Quartets. He often performs music of living composers—having world-premiered works by Augusta Reed Thomas, Aaron J Kernis, Philip Lasser, and Pieter Schuermans—and has worked with Esa-Pekka Salonen, John Zorn, Eric Montalbetti, Kinan Azmeh, Eric Tanguy, and George Lewis on their own compositions. Many of the relationships Ari cultivated through chamber music have led to CD recordings—he is featured on the Alpha Classics, DUX, MSR Classics, and Sono Luminus labels.
Ari has also played with many of New York’s premiere ensembles, working with Orpheus, ECCO, Music from Copland House, NOVUS, Metropolis Ensemble, New York Classical Players, Frisson Ensemble, and Exponential Ensemble. Additionally, he serves as the co-founder and artistic director of the Forest Hills Chamber Music Series, which he founded in 2019 to bring works by under-represented Jewish composers to his hometown of Forest Hills. Ari was a member of Carnegie Hall’s Ensemble Connect from 2018-2020, and studied with Timothy Eddy at the Juilliard School, where he received his Master’s Degree in 2017. He also holds a Bachelor’s degree from Northwestern University, where he graduated with honors.
