From Ear to Ear: A Pianist's Love Affair with Song

While other kids were enjoying the head-bashing pleasures of tackle football, a freshly bar mitzvahed Steven Blier was inhaling operas and getting his first taste of accompanying professional singers. Beginning with impromptu piano gigs in the 1960s, Blier ascended to a dazzling career as an accompanist, teacher, and producer that has taken him to the highest reaches of artistic achievement. Today, Blier has partnered many of the brightest stars in music and thousands have fallen in love with his work via his acclaimed New York Festival of Song.

From Ear to Ear recounts his picaresque and unfailingly entertaining road to a successful career as a collaborative pianist, bringing to life his partnerships with iconic performers like Renée Fleming, Susan Graham, Jessye Norman, Cecilia Bartoli, and Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, and beloved mentors, including Alvin Epstein and Martha Schlamme. Drawing on his innovative work as a vocal coach and concert producer, Blier takes readers deep into his artistic process, revealing the intricacies of song interpretation, what makes certain songs tick, and what music has meant in his life and what it can mean in anyone's. But Blier also tells a parallel story: his lifelong battle with a rare form of muscular dystrophy. Aided by his intense determination, as well as his wry sense of humor, Blier continues his life at the piano.

True to a musician for whom nothing is off limits, From Ear to Ear showcases Blier's voracious musical appetite, dazzling wit, and the hard-earned lessons from a lifetime of performance. As Adam Gopnik writes in his foreword, Blier's career and achievements are "genuinely heroic, a testament to the power of music."

Author: Steven Blier
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 11/18/2025
Pages: 280
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.15lbs
Size: 9.10h x 6.30w x 1.10d
ISBN: 9781324005483


Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 09/01/2025
Booklist 11/01/2025

About the Author
Gopnik, Adam: - Adam Gopnik is a staff writer at The New Yorker and has written for the magazine since 1986. He has three National Magazine awards for essays and for criticism. The author of numerous best-selling books, including Paris to the Moon, he lives in New York City.Blier, Steven: - Steven Blier is a Grammy Award-winning pianist, acclaimed accompanist, and co-founder and artistic director of the New York Festival of Song. He has taught at the Juilliard School since 1992 and lives in New York City.