Acclaimed soprano Julia Bullock has captivated audiences around the world with her powerful performances while carving out a fascinating trajectory for herself, giving defining performances of operas by John Adams and Igor Stravinsky.
Her latest role is in Michel van der Aa’s new multimedia opera Upload, with upcoming performances at the Dutch National Opera (October 1–8), as well as Cologne Opera and the Park Avenue Armory in New York in future seasons. Bullock stars in this modern drama centered on a father and daughter who struggle to connect after the ailing father decides to upload his conscious mind into a digital version of himself. (See reviews from the world premiere in Bregenz last July.)
In addition to her renown as a singer, Bullock is celebrated for her curatorial instincts. She states:
When I’m thinking about curating, I’m looking for themes I’m
grappling with as an individual, and how that is being echoed across
what is happening in our world right now. When I look at composers like
Michel van der Aa or John Adams or Benjamin Britten, they have a
wonderful self-awareness for their own selves, while also referencing
everything else that is going on around them. In that way, I identify
with these composers because they are challenging themselves constantly.
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First off, Michel is just a sensitive, patient person. And there is tremendous sensitivity and a level of grace that he demands from the performers in all his music. There’s something pristine that he’s always seeking—it’s in the orchestration and it’s in the vocal line.
The first piece he ever saw me perform was in The Rake’s Progress by Stravinsky. And he told me, “You found a wonderful way to balance the demands of Stravinsky’s music, his architecture, and angular writing, and find the lyricism and throughline.”
In Stravinsky’s music, much like in van der Aa’s, it’s pulling from several different musical sources. He pulls from practically every period of music in The Rake’s Progress. For Michel’s music, he balances between the classical operatic space and popular music space. That is very apparent in the writing, and from Day One of rehearsal it was absolutely necessary to keep that in mind in order to satisfy the delivery he sought after. Michel wants the most direct delivery of his material possible with utmost clarity. He also values utmost balance in a person’s singing voice. So even if there are emotional extremes throughout the opera, that still needed to be translated into my voice with balance and grace. As a singer, I learned a tremendous amount from that, and for the development of the character, it was interesting to have that state of balance be the consistent point of return.
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My hometown orchestra, the Petersburg Symphony Orchestra, was founded by Black conductor and clarinetist F. Nathaniel Gatlin. Professor Gatlin had a long career as chair of the music department at Virginia State University, a historically Black university, and was founder of the Intercollegiate Music Association. With Petersburg being in the area of the South commonly referred to as the “Crescent of the Civil War,” it is hard to imagine that a Black man had founded a symphony orchestra in such a racially complex city, let alone be the conductor. Yet, upon the death of Gatlin in 1989, another brilliant Black conductor (and cellist), Ulysses Kirksey, took up the helm and led the orchestra for 32 years until his untimely death in August.
I was not old enough to experience the artistry of Gatlin, but as a child it was through attending PSO concerts under the baton of Kirksey that I heard the great symphonic works played by a racially diverse orchestra. In what was certainly a full circle moment for me, I got some of my first professional opportunities with the orchestra as a student at Virginia State, including several performances of Handel’s Messiah as tenor soloist and the premiere of the opera The Edge of Glory by Emory Waters in which I sang the role of Henry Warren.
At a time when there are ongoing conversations about the lack of diversity in major American orchestras, I find myself wondering how an orchestra in a city of modest cultural resources such as Petersburg could achieve a sense of multiracial welcoming while large orchestras have seemed to shy away from the idea. Having now lived in the Washington, D.C., area for 15 years, and attended many concerts, I always ponder why I hardly see any Black musicians in the professional ensembles that play at the large halls. There are many talented Black string players in Washington, but unless a concert is a special program geared to a Black audience or centered around Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the full breadth of artistry simply is not as far-reaching as it should be.
The Sphinx Competition, open to young string players from underrepresented communities, is the organization’s flagship event (the 25th annual competition will be Jan. 26-29, 2022, in Detroit). In June, Sphinx was one of the 286 organizations awarded part of a $2.74 billion round of grants from philanthropist MacKenzie Scott, ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
Sphinx has several professional ensembles, including the Sphinx Virtuosi chamber orchestra, which returned to live performance in September and October with a nine-city tour featuring works of Jessie Montgomery, Xavier Foley, Alberto Ginastera, and others. The Oct. 15 gala at Carnegie Hall includes Sphinx Medal of Excellence recipient bass-baritone Davóne Tines in the world premiere of an arrangement of the hymn “Angels in Heaven” by Carlos Simon, also a Medal of Excellence recipient.
Born in Moscow and trained as a violinist in Azerbaijan, Dworkin is a powerful testament to what can be achieved when you keep focus on your dreams and ambitions. Her abiding principle is that arts opportunities can be made for all who desire to have access to them. We began our conversation by discussing her own introduction to music as a child in the former Soviet Union.
CVNA: What was the role of your parents as you began to express interest in music?
ASD: My dad was a chemical engineer, so he had a completely different mindset. In his leisure time, he did play the piano and the accordion, but he did not view music as a profession. He viewed it more as an important discipline to which every young person should be exposed. My mother was a romance languages linguist and a French professor at the university, so she had no exposure to music other than what was available in school.
In the Soviet Union, there were three television channels: one was news, another was Soviet news and propaganda, and the third was classical music. The classical channel was on all the time, so I heard the best masters and a lot of chamber music. I fell in love with a string orchestra called the Moscow Virtuosi, which inspired the Sphinx Virtuosi later. Their charismatic leader, Vladimir Spivakov, had me enthralled by how he handled the violin, so I kept asking my folks about studying the violin. Finally, when I turned seven my father said there was no harm if I wanted to audition.
In Azerbaijan’s capital city of Baku, there was a free community music conservatory where you could pick your instrument. I still remember when my mom took me for the audition. My introduction to music was sunny, harmonious, and I fell in love with my teacher. In the third grade, my folks took me to audition for pre-conservatory and I got in. Something that I loved was the concept that classical music would never differentiate because of your zip code, race, ethnicity, or culture. I was one of the few multiracial kids there, but no one ever made me feel different or lesser. That was something that was poignantly missing when I first came to the States at 17 years old, pursuing my bachelor’s and master’s degrees, and was introduced to what was to become an early concept of Sphinx.
CVNA: It was at the University of Michigan where you met your future husband and fellow violinist, Aaron Dworkin, who founded Sphinx. How did the idea of diversity in classical music come up?
ASD: One day he was speaking about being the only multiracial person in an orchestra, and he asked me when was the last time that I had studied a concerto by a Black composer. My response was defensive, saying only that I was sure that Ellington and Joplin both wrote for orchestra. My lack of knowledge unsettled me and made me angry. I realized there was so much for me to learn. When I asked Aaron what he was going to do about the need for diversity in the classical music world, he said he was going to mount a festival that put the spotlight on string players of color. That festival was the initial pipeline that evolved into what we now know as the Sphinx Organization.
CVNA: In 2015, you succeeded Aaron as head of Sphinx. It can be daunting to take over an organization from its founder. Was that hard?
ASD: It is impossible to have replicated our founder’s role and impact. Fortunately, Aaron remains involved as a strategic adviser to our key initiatives. Ours is a life partnership (the Dworkins have two sons), which also helped empower my work and trajectory.
Hello from Bill Doggett.
AXIOM
Jeffrey Milarsky, Music Director
BOULEZ Mémoriale
Alvin SINGLETON Again
MESSIAEN Sept Haïkaï
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Alvin Singleton writes: The concert does require tickets, however, admission is free!
Tuesday, October 12th at 7:00pm
@ An Die Musik, Baltimore
Free, livestreamed, with limited in-person seating
REPERTOIRE INCLUDES:
Movement for String Trio - Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson
in soft echoes...a world awaits - Jeffrey Mumford (with animation by Gregory Little)
Be Still and Know - Carlos Simon Jr.
Sanctum Rhapsody for Viola and Piano - Adolphus Hailstork
Piano Trio - Brian Raphael Nabors
CASTLE OF OUR SKINS PERFORMERS INCLUDE:
Gabriela Díaz, violin
Ashleigh Gordon, viola
Francesca McNeeley, cello
Joy Cline Phinney, piano
While we’ve been stewing and worrying over the continued existence of many of the smaller-budget arts groups that are so vital to the Bay Area scene, One Found Sound has been planning a season designed to put our fears to rest.
“I’ve been so heartened by the support that One Found Sound has received throughout the pandemic,” co-founder Sasha Launer wrote me.
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The orchestra, founded by graduates of the SF Conservatory, is preparing “Constellations,” a season of great music at their home base, Heron Arts in San Francisco’s SOMA district. The theme threading through the whole season is our relationship with the natural world.
The orchestra opens up with “Phoenix” on October 16, a concert that features Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate’s Chokfi (Rabbit), a seven-minute piece originally written for a youth orchestra that the SF Symphony also included in a “Currents” program. Louise Farrenc’s imaginative and masterful Symphony No. 3 prepares the way for Jessie Montgomery’s Records of a Vanishing City (2016), a tone poem about the vibrant artistic diversity of New York City in the 1980s and 90s, when Montgomery was growing up.
October 9, 2021
David Salazar
Kaufman Music Center is set to publish “Who is Florence Price?” a children’s book created by students with the goal of telling the story of Price’s life for lower school readers.
Price is the first Black woman composer to have her music performed by a major orchestra. The piece in question was her Symphony in E minor, which was premiered by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Price would go on to compose several other major pieces of music, including concertos, a Suite for String Instruments commissioned by Sir John Barbirolli, and several songs.
“Who is Florence Price?” was initiated by English teacher Shannon Potts who could not find any materials about Price’s life at the lower school reading level.
“The students studied Price’s biography and mapped out her life story on a wall, discussing which elements were most important to the narrative for their intended audience at the approximately third-grade level. After collaboratively writing and revising the text, the students created the illustrations, beginning with backgrounds of cut paper,” describes an official press release.
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The book will be launched on Nov. 18 at Merkin Hall at Kaufman Music Center.
Courier-Gazette
From the Newspaper
October 9, 2021
ROCKLAND — The 2021-2022 season of Metropolitan Opera Live in HD simulcasts from New York City’s Lincoln Center continues at the Strand Theatre, 345 Main St., Saturday, Oct. 23, at 1 p.m. with a broadcast of Blanchard’s “Fire Shut Up In My Bones,” the first opera by a Black composer presented on the Met stage. An encore presentation will take place Tuesday, Nov. 2, at 1 p.m.
Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts Grammy Award–winning jazz musician and composer Terence Blanchard’s adaptation of Charles M. Blow’s moving memoir. Featuring a libretto by filmmaker Kasi Lemmons, the opera tells a poignant and profound story about a young man’s journey to overcome a life of trauma and hardship. James Robinson and Camille A. Brown—two of the creators of the Met’s sensational recent production of “Porgy and Bess”—co-direct this new staging. Baritone Will Liverman, one of opera’s most exciting young artists, stars as Charles, alongside sopranos Angel Blue as Destiny/Loneliness/Greta and Latonia Moore as Billie. This live cinema transmission is part of the Met’s award-winning Live in HD series, bringing opera to movie theaters across the globe.
Seattle is a city that likes to experiment. From big tech to bold coffee, glass gardens to snow-capped mountains, Seattleites like to think outside the box — heck, even our hot dogs are a little unconventional. Our skyline's defining landmark is designed to look like a flying saucer from outer space.
So it's only natural that this same inventive spirit carries over into our music. From grunge to rock, pop, hip-hop, and the avant-garde, Seattle music has always been defined by open ears and open minds — shaped by a DIY aesthetic and set free to evolve and mutate in relative geographic isolation.
And those sonic experiments have led us to some pretty fascinating places. In this three-part series, Classical KING FM 98.1 explores the work of three artists who embody Seattle classical: the innovative, the unusual, and the unexpected.
You've probably heard the piano music of composers like Beethoven, Mozart, or Chopin — but what about Nkeiru Okoye, Halim El-Dabh, or Kwabena Nketia?
If you're like most classical listeners, you might not be very familiar with classical music from Africa and the African Diaspora. That's something William Chapman Nyaho is working to change. The Seattle-based, Ghanaian-American pianist has spent his career championing the works of lesser-known composers from across the African continent and beyond.
