Ben Bliss & Christopher Allen
Ben Bliss & Christopher Allen open Vocal Arts DC’s season with an American song recital spanning musical theater, concert repertoire, folk-influenced songs, and poetic art song. Bliss’s tenor is paired with Allen’s piano in a program that moves from witty Broadway numbers and nostalgic standards to intimate, lyrical settings of American poetry.
The recital includes music by Stephen Sondheim, Rodgers and Hart, Leonard Bernstein, Kurt Weill, Charles Ives, Samuel Barber, Noël Coward, Simon & Garfunkel, and others. Featured poets include E. E. Cummings, Langston Hughes, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Allen Ginsberg. The evening is intended both as a portrait of the American musical voice and as a showcase for Bliss’s expressive range, supported by Allen’s experience as a pianist, conductor, and collaborative artist.
When: Sunday, October 4, 2026
Showtime: 5:00 PM
Venue: Live! at 10th & G, 945 G St NW, Washington, DC 20001
Tickets: Price not available
Performers: Ben Bliss, tenor; Christopher Allen, piano
Program: The announced selections include “I’m Calm” and “Everybody Says Don’t” by Stephen Sondheim; “The What-Cha-Ma-Call-It” by Gene de Paul and Johnny Mercer; Charles Ives’s “The Things Our Fathers Loved”; Lowell Liebermann’s setting of Longfellow’s “The Arrow and the Song”; John Gruen’s settings of E. E. Cummings in “Spring is like a perhaps hand” and “Lady will you come with me into”; “Bridge over Troubled Water” by Simon & Garfunkel; “America the Beautiful” in the traditional and Ray Charles version; “Are You Having Any Fun?”; “I’m Gonna Live Till I Die”; Kurt Weill and Langston Hughes’s “Lonely House”; “Where or When”; Samuel Barber’s “Nocturne, Op. 13, No. 4”; “Say It (Over and Over Again)”; “Just in Time”; Sondheim’s “Being Alive”; Bernstein’s “Some Other Time”; Noël Coward’s “Let’s Say Good-bye”; “One for My Baby (and One More for the Road)”; and Philip Glass’s setting of Ginsberg’s “Wichita Vortex Sutra.”
Run time: To be determined.
Program note: The listed selections may change.
About Ben Bliss: Bliss is a Grammy-nominated tenor recognized for the clarity, control, and sensitivity of his singing. He received the Metropolitan Opera’s Beverly Sills Award in 2021 and has also won the Martin E. Segal Award, the Mozart and Plácido Domingo prizes at the Francisco Viñas International Competition, first prizes in the Gerda Lissner and Licia Albanese-Puccini Foundation competitions, and the Operalia Don Plácido Domingo Sr. Zarzuela prize. His operatic work has included performances with the Metropolitan Opera, Opéra national de Paris, Bayerische Staatsoper, Royal Opera House, Glyndebourne, Los Angeles Opera, and other leading companies. His 2026–27 engagements include role debuts as Alfredo in La traviata and the Duke in Rigoletto, as well as returns to the Metropolitan Opera and Gran Teatre del Liceu. He is also the author of *Making It Work*, a guide to financial and entrepreneurial literacy for freelance performers.
About Christopher Allen: Allen is a pianist, conductor, and collaborative artist who received the Sir Georg Solti Conducting Award. He has conducted or performed with major orchestras and opera companies including the Atlanta, Cincinnati, Utah, National, and Kansas City symphonies; the Los Angeles, Washington National, Chicago Lyric, Santa Fe, and Philadelphia opera organizations; and companies in Europe, Asia, and South America. His past work includes musical preparation for Los Angeles Opera’s Grammy-winning production of *The Ghosts of Versailles*. He is the Creative and Artistic Director of Fourth Wall Ensemble, which he founded in 2023, and has performed at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, Wolf Trap, and other venues. His 2025–26 activities include engagements with *The Rake’s Progress*, *Silent Night*, the Fourth Wall Ensemble, and additional orchestral and operatic projects.