Music of all kinds flourishes in the Princeton community. Organizations may come and go but new ones take their place. The most recent addition to Princeton’s musical world is an unusual one, the Federation of the Art Song (FAS) founded in 2021 by Alta Malberg and Martin Néron who are its co-artistic directors.

Although people may not think about it, the song is embedded throughout the musical world. In addition to the form of the song as practiced by composers such as Schubert, Grieg, and other composers in the European classical tradition, the song is the basis for Broadway musicals, Hollywood extravaganzas, and is a feature of societies worldwide. The Federation of the Art Song addresses itself to the song in all its variety.

The Mission of the Federation of the Art Song is to create a broader appreciation of all songs. But it goes further. A crucial aspect of its mission is providing opportunities for singers and collaborative pianists/instrumentalists to perform, thus growing and developing their artistic identities. The FAS awards a Fellowship annually and mounts concerts on a regular basis to maintain the robust art song tradition.

Alta Malberg, as a performing soprano and a vocal teacher herself, has had a long career in music which has taught her and her husband Dr. Marc Malberg, an orthopedic surgeon and visual artist, that musicians not only need help in finding opportunities to perform but also sometimes need help just to subsist. The difficulties performing artists face was particularly evident during the pandemic. That awareness is one of the driving motivations behind the establishment of the Federation of the Art Song.

On Saturday evening May 14, 2022, at 5 pm, the Federation of Song presented a celebration saluting its formation in a concert with baritone Jean Bernard Cerin and pianist Martin Néron performing in a program of vocal and piano music from colonial and modern Haiti tracing the flow of musical styles and stories from Europe and Africa that blended on the island and made their way from Haiti to France, the United States (particularly Louisiana) and South America. The concert was at the home of local arts patrons, Judith K. Brodsky and Michael Curtis.

Praised for his “burnished tone and focused phrasing,” (Chestnut Hill Local) baritone Jean Bernard Cerin has charmed audiences throughout the United States, France, Austria, and his native Haiti. A gifted recitalist, he won the Gerard Souzay Prize for best performance of a French Mélodie at the Joy in Singing International Song Competition in 2018. On the concert stage, Cerin has appeared with leading early music ensembles throughout the United States including Cleveland’s Les Délices, American Bach Soloists in San Francisco, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society’s Gamut Bach Ensemble, Piffaro Renaissance Wind Ensemble, Louisville’s Bourbon Baroque, and the Philadelphia Bach Festival. This season, he debuts with the Greater Bridgeport Symphony in CT, Classical Uncorked in Seattle, and the Berkeley Early Music Festival in California. Closer to home, in Pennsylvania, he has several concerts with Philadelphia Choral Arts, Night Music, and the Bucks County Choral Society. Cerin serves is an assistant professor at Lincoln University i and will be joining the faculties of the Collaborative Piano Institute in Baton Rouge and the Chamber Music Collective in Berkeley California next the summer. He completed his doctorate at the University of Michigan, holds a Master of Music from the New England Conservatory in Boston, and a Bachelor of Arts from St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia.

Martin Néron, a Canadian pianist, is acclaimed for his performances of art song repertoire and research in linguistics. He is on the faculty at Westminster Choir College and is a virtual music instructor at Shanti Bhavan, a boarding school for children from India's lowest socioeconomic class located in Tamil Nadu. He will be joining the faculty of the Art Song Institute of the Snow Pond Music Festival this June in Maine. He has held residencies at Tennessee TU and Fundación Armonía (Ecuador), and presented masterclasses at Butler University, Washington and Ohio State University, TCNJ, Hunter College, NATS, Arte Lirico, and Universidad Central del Ecuador. He held a residency at University of Kentucky in February 2022, where curated its first Art Song Festival, featuring exclusively Latin American repertoire. He is founder and artistic director of the Vocalis Consort, an ensemble which strives to showcase vocal works that have been traditionally overlooked in addition to excelling in performing the core of the mélodie and Lied repertoire. In 2021 he successfully designed and managed the first Canto Latino Online International Competition, a competition which specifically features and promotes vocal repertoire from Latin America. Martin has been on the faculty at the Taos Opera Institute (2019-2021), and is a past member of the Board of Directors of the Joy in Singing Foundation, serving as Vice President between 2017 and 2019. Praised as “an attentive partner” (Opera News), Martin has recorded albums of French, Greek, British, and American songs. His scholarly work is frequently featured in the Journal of Singing. His book, Francis Poulenc: Selected Song Texts, was published by Leyerle in 2010. As a recording artist, he has released albums with multiple labels including Mauthausen (2015) which features the Shanghai Quartet, clarinetist Igor Begelman, and mezzo-soprano Lina Orfanou. Néron has also recorded several concerts for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. He holds degrees from the Manhattan School of Music (DMA), Westminster Choir College (MM), and Université de Montréal (BM).

A native of New Jersey, Alta Malberg has been a resident of Princeton for 34 years. When she and her future husband, Marc, a retired orthopedic surgeon, were dating they knew that after they completed their education and travels they would settle here. A graduate of Manhattan School of Music, she has performed in Europe and the United States on both stage and screen, and has lectured at the Performing Arts Library at Lincoln Center. She was a member of the board of directors of the international singing competition, “Joy In Singing,” for 30 years, serving as its president in her final years on that board. Having directed and produced as well as performed in many concerts and shows, Malberg has also taught voice for more than 30 years in her studios in New York City and Princeton. She is on the board of directors of the Princeton Adult School.