The Brooklyn Art Song Society (BASS) will enter its 14th season of first-rate music making in the Fall of 2023, 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. Opera News wrote, “Brooklyn Art Song Society keeps the intimate recital alive with innovative programming,” and “BASS delivered a triumph of a program, as they have throughout their distinguished history, skillfully reminding us of the great vitality and power of Art Song.” The New Yorker praised BASS as “invaluable” and “uncompromisingly dedicated to continuing the traditions of classical art song, both old and new.” BASS was named the “Most Innovative” Classical Music organization of 2019 by Classical Post. Seen and Heard International wrote “BASS has not only made Brooklyn its home over the past decade, but also one of the most exciting venues for song anywhere.”
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. In fact, it is the single largest commissioner of new art song working today. BASS has commissioned over 25 composers, including Katherine Balch, The Balliett Brothers, Lembit Beecher, Eve Beglarian, Daniel Felsenfeld, Daron Hagen, Mikhail Johnson, Libby Larsen, James Matheson, Harold Meltzer, Reinaldo Moya, Kurt Rohde, Huang Ruo, Carlos Simon and Scott Wheeler.
Highlights from the 2023-2024 season include the six-concert festival Circles and the fourth annual New Voices Festival, a three-concert series focused on art song in the 21st-century., featuring commissioned world premieres by Iain Bell, Jessica Meyer, and Aida Shirazi. In addition to monthly concerts in Brooklyn, BASS has traveled to Philadelphia, Kansas City, Portland, ME, Raleigh, San Francisco, and Seattle and has held residencies at Cornell University, University of Notre Dame, University of California-Davis, University of Chicago, Ithaca College and University of South Carolina. BASS also reaches music lovers around the country and globe with its innovative Digital Concert Hall and partners with Heights and Hills Senior Services to bring monthly concerts to their Park Slope Center for Successful Aging. BASS’s artist roster features over 50 of the finest young interpreters of art song. For more information visit www.brooklynartsongsociety.org.