New York Festival of Song to Honor Ned Rorem

The New York Festival of Song will celebrate the 90th birthday of Ned Rorem, this country’s most celebrated and prolific art song composer, as part of its 2013-14 season, which will also include the addition of a new “After Hours” series, as well as an expansion that will bring its programs to new halls.

The festival’s main series, now called “Mainstage,” at Merkin Concert Hall, opens with “Ned Is Ninety,” the tribute to Mr. Rorem, on Nov. 5. The program, which will be sung by the mezzo-soprano Kate Lindsey and the baritone Andrew Garland, will include Mr. Rorem’s music as well as songs by his contemporaries, among them Samuel Barber, Leonard Bernstein, Paul Bowles, Aaron Copland, Francis Poulenc and Virgil Thomson.

The series also includes a look at Cuban music, “Cubans in Paris, Cubans at Home,” in which Corinne Winters, the soprano, Jeffrey Picón, the tenor, and Ricardo Herrera, the baritone, will sing excerpts from “Toi C’est Moi,” a 1934 opera by Moises Simóns, on Dec. 5, and “Warsaw Serenade,” an overview of 20th-century Polish works, performed by Dina Kuznetsova, the soprano, and Joseph Kaiser, the tenor. Steven Blier and Michael Barrett, the festival’s directors, will be the pianists at all three concerts.

The festival’s “Next” series, in which hourlong concerts are programmed and hosted by living composers, is moving to the Opera America’s National Opera Center. The three installments include evenings overseen by Mark Adamo (Jan. 28), John Musto (March 4) and Harold Meltzer (April 1).

The new “After Hours” series at Henry’s Restaurant, Broadway at 105th Street, will include three 10 p.m. cabaret programs: “Autumn in New York” (Sept. 23), “A Goyische Christmas to You!” (Dec. 16) and “The Land Where the Good Songs Go” (May 5).

A version of “The Land Where the Good Songs Go,” a celebration of P. G. Wodehouse’s collaborations with Jerome Kern, George Gershwin, Cole Porter, and Ivor Novello, will also be performed at the Juilliard School on Jan. 15, as part of the festival’s “Emerging Artists” series, which puts a spotlight on the work of young singers. Other concerts in the series are at Poquatuck Hall in Orient, N.Y. (Aug. 25); the Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts, in Katonah, N.Y. (March 16) and at the National Opera Center (March 18 and 19).