The Brooklyn-based singer was our favorite part of the Brooklyn Philharmonic's "Brooklyn Village" concert in March, as the soloist in Matthew Mehlan's "Canvas." She has also sung with New York City Opera and New York City Center Encores! This fall she sings new opera, Gershwin, and a little rock n' roll.

What neighborhood do you live in?
I live in North Park Slope with my husband, writer-composer Kyle Jarrow. I love my 'hood! There is little I enjoy more than a good meal, and we’re lucky to have some killer restaurants nearby: Franny’s, Miriam, Blue Sky Bakery, etc. However, we are three blocks away from the new Brooklyn Nets stadium and that makes us a little nervous. We’ll see how the neighborhood changes when it opens.

How long have you been in NY?
I moved to New York immediately after college, roughly six years ago. I came to the city because that’s where you go when you have big dreams of becoming a working actress/singer/performer. It’s only taken me six years to learn how not to starve.

What's the best venue you've performed at in NY?
I have three favorites that also really encompass who I am as a performer. Carnegie Hall for classical music grandeur; Henry’s uptown for intimate cabaret performances; and The Rock Shop in Brooklyn for when I perform with my rock band Sky-Pony.

Where would you love to perform that you haven't yet?
I’ve always really wanted to perform at BAM, as I can walk there from my house.

If you could collaborate with any living artist, who would it be? Dead?
I’ve had the great fortune to be able to work with so many amazingly talented and kind people. If I could collaborate with anyone in the city right this second, it’d have to be Steve Blier of the New York Festival of Song. Working with him is always a sheer joy, filled with love and wicked wisdom. The man is brilliant. If I could travel back in time, I would love to collaborate with Leonard Bernstein. His music is so achingly real and present. He clearly really understood writing for singers.

What's next for you?
My rock band Sky-Pony will be performing at Joe’s Pub on August 19. You should come! We’ll also be premiering a concert-theater hybrid piece as part of the Play Company’s 2012/2013 season. In the fall, I’ll debut the new opera Dog Days by David Little and Royce Vavrek at Montclair Peak Performances. Then a lovely concert in October, Mr. Gershwin Goes to Washington, with NYFOS. Following that, I will be singing the role of Flora in New York City Opera’s production of The Turn of the Screw at BAM in February 2013.

The 30-year-old Chicago native is now settled in Brooklyn; he's one of four young composers whose work will be featured, as world premieres, in the Brooklyn Philharmonic's preview concert in October.

What neighborhood do you live in?
I live in Ft. Greene, and I love it more than any place I've ever lived.

How long have you been in NY?
I grew up in Chicago, and moved to New York when I was 18 to attend Manhattan School of Music. I've lived here ever since.

What's the best venue where your work has been performed in NY?
My music has been played at Carnegie Hall a few times—and that was definitely a rush—but I have to say I was prouder to be a part of the opening concert at Issue Project Room's new space in Downtown Brooklyn. Venues like Issue Project Room and Roulette are fearless promoters of new and experimental music, and are helping to make Brooklyn one of the most exciting places in the world to be a composer.

If you could collaborate with any living artist, who would it be? Dead?
I'd love to write some music for Audra McDonald someday. She's such an incredibly versatile musician with a stunning instrument, and I really admire her sense of social responsibility—what it means to be an artist in the world today. She's really got it all. If I had a time machine, I'd be trying to figure out a way to work with Merce Cunningham.

What's next for you?
In 2012-13, I'll have new pieces premiered by the Brooklyn Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble and Boston's A Far Cry, and I'm also working on a new vocal/theatrical piece about Bradley Manning.

The 26-year-old Arab-American has quite a year ahead of him, with concerts, operas, song cycles and more planned for some of the city's largest spaces and hippest alternative venues, from Carnegie Hall to the Issue Project Room in Boerum Hill.

What neighborhood do you live in? How do you like it?
I’m a Chelsea boy, and I love it!

How long have you been in NY?
I’ve been in NYC for most of my life, although I spent a lot of my childhood in London and otherwise traveling.

What's the best venue where your work has been performed in NY?
I love Carnegie Hall for its brilliant acoustics and history. I’ve enjoyed performances of my work there a lot. I also love the vibe of alternative venues, or even creating new venues in which to present music that can be an entry point for people who ordinarily wouldn’t think of going to a concert hall to hear music.

Where would you love to see it that you haven't yet?
I love the theater, and I’ve written an opera, so a great Broadway theater—like the Gershwin—or even the Metropolitan Opera House one day would be amazing.

If you could collaborate with any living artist, who would it be? Dead?
There are too many people in too many different fields, but to randomly focus it, I’ll pick a couple of pianists. Jeremy Denk’s playing makes me want to create something for him. As far as dead people go, doing a show with Liberace would be way cool.

What's next for you?
A few new pieces, including a song cycle for Kate Lindsey and the Metropolis Ensemble [Oct 23-24 at (le) poisson rouge], a work for the totally inspirational New York Festival of Song [Dec 4 at Merkin Concert Hall]. Also a staging of my first opera, Sumeida’s Song, at the first ever Protototype Festival [Jan 9-15 at HERE Arts Center], and the premiere of my fourth symphony, In the Shadow of No Towers, at Carnegie Hall in March. Then there's a new quartet for the Borromeo Quartet called The Named Angels based on angels in Islamic and Arabic Mythology [Oct 11 at Issue Project Room], and a chamber orchestra piece for the New Juilliard Ensemble [Apr 12 at Alice Tully], and another song cycle called Pierrot Lunaire for the Da Capo Chamber Players [Jun 6 at Merkin Concert Hall].

Also, I have a couple of new discs coming out: my opera on Bridge Records and a portrait disc featuring Rachel Barton Pine, David Krakauer, the Borromeo Quartet and the Imani Winds on Naxos American Classics.

The Brooklyn-based Civilians do what they call "investigative theater"; their shows tackle socio-political issues, the scripts derived from research and interviews—often verbatim! In 2010, they presented at the Irondale in Fort Greene In the Footprint, a musical about the development of Atlantic Yards (within walking distance of the construction site!) that included the voices of residents, activists, and politicians. In September, they will present a new show at Joe's Pub about the Occupy movement on its one-year anniversary, and in October they christen BAM's new Fisher theater with Paris Commune, about Europe's first working-class uprising.

We spoke to Civilians composer Michael Friedman, who co-created Paris (and wrote the music for In the Footprint) with founder and artistic director Steve Cosson. Friedman's perhaps best known for writing the score to Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, which moved to Broadway from the Public in 2010.

What neighborhood do you live in?
Clinton Hill. I love it—the architecture, the people, the mood.

How long have you been in NY? What brought you here?

I came here for no good reason 15 years ago.

What's the best venue where your work has been performed in NY? And where would you love to see it that you haven't yet?

Actually, having my work performed at BAM had been a dream since I came to NYC, so that's coming true. I've had work at some really great venues; the Delacorte in Central Park and Jazz at Lincoln Center's Allen Room have the best views.

If you could collaborate with any artists, living or dead, who would they be?
Living, Jasper Johns; dead, Balanchine.

Sokolovic recently earned her MFA from Yale, and in April was nominated for the Drama Desk Award for outstanding featured actress in a musical for her role in The Shaggs: Philosophy of the World. This fall, she will appear in Lisa D'Amour's hotly anticipated Detroit, at Playwrights Horizons, as part of a cast that also includes Amy Ryan and David Schwimmer.

What neighborhood do you live in?
I live in Cobble Hill. It's the best. I never want to move.

How long have you been in NY?
I came in 2005 after I had been moving around a lot. I have always had a bit of wanderlust. New York seemed like an inevitable and necessary adventure. I drove here with a good pal, $800 to my name, and a dream.

What's the best venue you've performed at in NY?
I can't name a "best." I have favorites all over, some for nostalgic reasons, some for configuration or architecture.

Where would you love to perform that you haven't yet?
Every time I see something at St. Ann's I wanna get up and dance, so I hope I perform there someday.

If you could collaborate with any living artist, who would it be?
I think Bradford Louryk is a genius. I love Andrew Wade and would follow him anywhere. I think Robert Woodruff is really exciting, and a really special soul. My friend Lileana Blain Cruz is brilliant. The list is endless, really.

What's next for you?
Who can say... I do hope to take a vacation before the new year. I have never been to France and always wanted to go. If anyone wanted to send me there as a gift, I wouldn't say no.

Costanzo made a splash last season in the Metropolitan Opera's celebrated pastiche The Enchanted Island. Fresh off a sold-out concert at the Park Avenue Armory this month, part of the Mostly Mozart festival, he will sing a Baroque program at the Player's Club on September 28, opening the Salon/Sanctuary concert series, with Met Assistant Conductor and Harpsichordist Bradley Brookshire and New York City Ballet Principal Dancer Jared Angle.

What neighborhood do you live in?
This is my 19th year living in New York City, and I’ve lived in several neighborhoods, including the Upper West Side, the Village, Gramercy, and now the Upper East Side. While I can’t say that the Upper East Side is my cup of tea, it does have its merits. I live near Café Sabarsky, a striking Viennese room overlooking the park where I often go to study music and eat the best apfelstrudel in the city. On the other end of the spectrum, I’m pretty jazzed that a Fairway has opened up on the East Side allowing for somewhat affordable grocery shopping. While the UES may not be the most lively ‘hood, at times it’s almost like taking a vacation upstate.

How long have you been in NY?
I moved here when I was 11 years old to perform in musicals and theater, on and off Broadway, before I became engrossed in opera and occasionally film. My parents are both native New Yorkers, but moved to North Carolina to teach at Duke University in Durham where I was born. The minute I set foot in NYC, I felt at home, and I feel certain that I’ll always live here.

What's the best venue you've performed at in NY?
I have to say that without question the Metropolitan Opera is the best venue I’ve ever performed in for several reasons. The acoustics in the theater are unreal; I’ve found that you can sing tiny soft notes and they can be heard by 4,000 people. If you stand near the foot of the stage, it sort of feels like being at the helm of a huge boat looking into an infinite horizon. What's more, the whole building is a wonderland. It is akin to what I imagine the old Hollywood studio lots were like: props and set pieces crammed into every corner, xylophones peeking out from behind doorways, racks and racks of intricately embroidered costumes lining the halls, rolls of gaffers tape piled near the elevators. It's amazing to think that all of this, in the hands of the hundreds and hundreds of people working in the building, exists solely to make an opera, and to make it as beautiful as possible.

I have had the great fortune to perform in many of New York's amazing venues, including Carnegie Hall, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, each of the three large theaters in Lincoln Center, The Main New York Public Library, Joe's Pub, and even a dream of mine, the Park Avenue Armory, last week.

Where would you love to perform that you haven't yet?
I would love to perform at the Museum of Modern Art, where I have been a member for many years. Singing right into some of that art would be thrilling.

If you could collaborate with any living artist, who would it be?
Among the living, what I wouldn't give to collaborate with Woody Allen. If he ever wants a special guest vocalist for his gig at the Carlyle, or someone to play a 17th-century castrato in a period recreation of Manhattan, I'm at the ready.

Dead?
Among the dead, I have a long list list including, but not limited to Jean Cocteau, Maria Callas, Ella Fitzgerald, and the man himself, Georg Friedrich Handel.

What's next for you?
I'm excited about many things coming up including several concerts New York, an opera with an idol, David Daniels, in Michigan, a brand new recital in Vancouver, a Messiah at the Kennedy Center, and upcoming projects with the Metropolitan Opera.

Kempson studied playwriting at Brooklyn College, in the acclaimed program headed by Mac Wellman, and her work has been produced at many of the city's hippest theaters, including the Soho Rep, PS 122, and the Brick. In October, her collaboration with Big Dance Theater opens at the Chocolate Factory.

What neighborhood do you live in?
After many, many long years of wishing I could just live in the East Village, I now live here. The first day I woke up and walked to the bank I nearly cried. I did live on St. Marks between Second and Third one summer during college, just above Dojo's, right over the street. I just sat in the window the whole summer, whenever I wasn't working at Gourmet Garage sweaty catering headquarters, where I was doing data entry, and watched the show outside. Friends would come over with beers to watch as well. It was a lot different then, of course. We saw amazing displays of humanity. An array of displays of what it means to be human. I was across from a big community center that is now some kind of a shopping mall. There was so much expression happening in such a concentration of space and area. It's still a lot of energy, but it's not as expressive. It's loud, but it doesn't say as much. Still, I'm glad to be here. We were able to move in to an apartment that a friend has had for a long time since the 1980s and now rents out. We waited a long time and then it opened up. We moved in here in April.

How long have you been in NYC?

I moved to NYC in November 1995. So however many years that is. I've lost count! The time is going by so quickly if I think about it in a linear way. Lately I've been considering time more as a cyclical concern.

What brought you here?
I was brought here by some kind of burning determination, which now escapes me. But I'm still here. I found out how hard it is here pretty quickly, and I decided I would stick it out. "If I can make it there, I'll make it anywhere ..." etc. And I am certain that's true! But the question is: where else would I go now? To make it? Where else is there for me to make it? Where is "anywhere"? Frank? Frank?

What's the best venue where your work has been performed in NYC?

I just did a piece at New Dramatists in June, a work-in-progress with some folks from Austin, Tex., I'm working with, and we used a whole bunch of the building, which had been a Lutheran Church complete with a soup kitchen and orphanage back in the day. Not to mention the many giant playwrights who have worked there over the years. So it has a very special feeling there, a kind of creative psychic echo I think, and I've done a lot of writing in there, and I am always unusually inspired when I work there. So making this performance was very, very moving. We had music cascading down the stairwell - piano and (TWO!) trombones and ppl singing in harmony, and scenes happening in the entryway. It was pretty magical. So that's my favorite right now.

Where would you love to see it that you haven't yet?
I want Charas to be somehow opened back up again (the beautiful old abandoned elementary school on 9th between B & C), so we can all rehearse and perform grand shows there again, for next to nothing. They closed it up over ten years ago now I guess. They were supposedly going to turn it into luxury apts, but it never happened. So it's just blocked off and chained up, just standing there, empty. How many shows could have been made there in the meantime? I also become obsessed with abandoned car dealership and repair buildings. They all will make excellent theaters, I think. They have got everything you'd need! So, I'd like to do shows in several of those I see around the tri-state area.

If you could collaborate with any living artist, who would it be?

I always fantasize about collaborating with the people I work for at my day job, and making a piece together with them. I know it's wrong, and I shouldn't be having thoughts like that in a work environment where I'm supposed to keep a professional attitude, but I can't help it!

Dead?
I think it would be creepy to collaborate with a dead person. But if I had to pick one I guess it would be Anne Bancroft. I just know we could make a great piece together. And if I could add another person it would be my old friend Elaine Bradbury, who died some years back and who I miss terribly. Both of them draped in beautiful gossamers of exquisite spider webs. Like the kind of spider webs you find suspended on between the branches of a fallen tree that lays over a stream. With beads of very clean moisture on them. I would say Tom Murrin, but I did get to work with him not long before he left us. He recorded the voice of the "Old Bishop" in a play of mine we did at Dixon Place last year. I didn't know he was sick. Ben [Williams] did the sound and layered an Olivier Messiaen organ improv under his voice to separate it from the others. It was crazy and so wonderful and now it's an honest-to-goodness treasure. Tom was always doing magazine interviews like this, for Paper magazine. He was always helping the younger artists who were starting out. Now that he's gone he's like a great and mighty ancestor, and he can guide all of us.

What's next for you?

I'm going to teach this semester at Brooklyn College for the playwriting program there! I'm very excited about that. And then in the Spring I'm going to teach performance writing at Eugene Lang at the New School. Also exciting. Big Dance Theater opens ICH, KÜRBISGEIST at the Chocolate Factory in the Fall, and that's a play I wrote. In a made-up language. I can't wait to see it. They are absolutely fantastic artists. I don't know how they do what they do. Restless Eye, a piece I wrote in collaboration with David Neumann/Advanced Beginner Group is going to be published in PAJ in the Fall issue (yowsa!) and I'm presenting some bits of River of Gruel (the piece I'm making with a bunch of Austin folks which is a Full Stage USA commission through New Dramatists which is the piece I was talking about before) at the Prelude Festival in October, with help from the St. Fortune theater company and others. See you at the 'lude, dude!

Senko and DeRosa's documentary The Vanishing City highlights the political maneuvers that drove the transformations of neighborhoods across New York City, as working-class peoples were displaced and luxury high-rises erected. In October, it'll screen as part of Brooklyn Reconstructed, an ongoing documentary film series about development in Kings County.

What neighborhood do you live in?
JS: I live in Soho—but I’ve lived in Soho before it became the Soho of expensive shops and European travelers and uber-rich New York shoppers. My Soho is a neighborhood. We all know each other and say hello to each other on the street. We hang out at each other’s apartments and do favors for each other—like watch each other’s cats or accept a package or screw or unscrew a light bulb. If you’re tall like me, you get asked that.

FD: The area I live has been sort of a non-descript area. It is west of Soho and south of the Village and until recently could have been either the South Village or Soho, but since the construction boom it has been labeled Hudson Square. Much of Scorsese’s cult film After Hours was shot there in the early 80s. I enjoy living here because it is close to Soho and the Village. And because it's off the beaten path, it is really quiet on the weekends.

How long have you been in NYC? What brought you here?
JS: I’ve lived in New York a long, long time. I went to Pratt in Brooklyn in the late 70s, then moved away for about four years, and came back to settle in New York in 1982. I always thought I’d live in the country but being an artist I felt at home in New York.

FD: I’ve lived in Manhattan, in Hudson Square for the past 31 years.

What's your favorite place your work has been screened in NYC?
JS: All of the places we’ve screened have been great, but I think my favorite place was the Casabe House in East Harlem for an African American history class taught by Teresa Willis. Some of the students were homeless and a contingent from Picture the Homeless was there. I was so impressed with all of them; how organized, brave and smart they were. Some of them had minimum wage jobs, but couldn’t afford apartments so they lived in shelters, yet they still had the determination and spirit to educate themselves and try to see what they could do to better their world and the world for everyone else.

FD: We had a few screenings that really stand out. The screening at the Film Forum was one of my favorites because I like the venue and the people that support it. Also, the audiences that came to the Film Forum, Resistance Cinema and The Shomburg Center were really incredible. All three audiences had a really visceral response to the film and at times even stood up and shouted responses to the events on the screen. It was awesome! I also thought both the Harlem Film Festival and The Williamsburg Film Festivals were pretty terrific.

Where would you love to see it that you haven't yet?
FD: I would really like to see our film broadcast on PBS, Sundance, The Doc Channel or any television venue that could help us share this film with a larger audience. Many people assume that The Vanishing City is strictly about New York City, but when they see it they realize it has much larger implications. This documentary demonstrates what is going on in many major cities here and around the globe. It deals with the effects of globalization on working communities worldwide.

JS: Like Fiore, I would love to see our film on PBS. It’s perfect for it. Also, Sundance and The Doc Channel would allow us to share the film with a larger audience.

If you could collaborate with any living artist, who would it be? Dead?
FD: I really like collaborating with people on just about anything. I don’t find it any fun working alone on a project. And filmmaking is a collaborative art. Collaborating with Jen and the rest of our crew on The Vanishing City was great. It would have been a breeze if we had more access to funding. There are a number of New York filmmakers I really admire. The first would be Cassavetes. I remember the first time I saw A Woman Under the Influence and how deeply affected I was by the characters. I actually turned off the film for a few moments because I felt deeply embarrassed for them, as if I were in the room with them. I also really admire Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen, and Spike Lee, and would love to work with them to experience their process.

JS: My dream would be to collaborate on anything with Patti Smith, but given that I wouldn’t know what to collaborate with her on, I would then love to collaborate with Errol Morris—originally from Long Island. I love his sensibility. He’s brilliant and I figure could really lend me a hand with my next documentary... that brings me to your next question.

What's next for you?
JS: Just to take a break from all of the “fight,” I’ve been working on a dark comedy screenplay based on a true story about my family, but activism is so much a part of who I am. So my next project is something I started years ago but put away while I was working on Vanishing with Fiore. It’s called The Brainwashing of My Dad, which is about how certain media on the right... after the turning of the tide against the Vietnam war, Nixon decided to create a media which would present their point of view and most specifically, target old white men and those who could be easily brainwashed—namely, those who felt disenfranchised.

FD: I am nearly done with another documentary based on a best selling novel Rats by Robert Sullivan. I am co-directing with Chris Iversen, who did such a brilliant job editing The Vanishing City. It is in post and should be done in three to six months. I also have collaborated on two screenplays with my writing partner Samantha Talbot that our agent, the Robert Freedman Agency, is shopping around. Jen and I have been talking about working on another doc as well.