“I sort of made my name playing an alcoholic, broken down chanteuse. So it seemed inevitable that I would get an award for that someday.” That was the beginning of my conversation with Mx. Justin Vivian Bond when talking recently about Bond being named the first recipient of the Judy Icon Award at this year’s Night of A Thousand Judys at Joe’s Pub in New York on June 3rd.

This is the 12th year of the event that celebrates the legendary Garland while also raising money for the Ali Forney Center, an organization that provides housing and services to homeless LGBTQ+ in New York City.

Bond, who uses v as the preferred pronoun, is a transgender singer, actor, cabaret artist whose shows (including Rare Bird which premiered at Joe’s Pub in New York in early May and will be performed May 30th – June 1st at Feinsteins At the Nikko in San Francisco; Bond will debut Night Shade at Joe’s Pub June 20th – June 30th) range from the brilliant to the absurd in equal measure. V is also one half of Kiki & Herb with Kenny Mellman.

In 2021, Bond collaborated with countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo on a show called Only an Octave Apart. The critically-acclaimed show was recorded and the album was released in January of 2022

Last week I spoke with Bond about Garland’s influence, whether having a legacy is important to v and the role of dreams in one’s life. What follows are excerpts from our conversation that have been edited for length and clarity. To see the full interview with Bond, please go to our YouTube channel.

You are the first recipient of the Judy Icon Award at Night of a Thousand Judys. How did that feel when you found out?

I’m very honored. Justin Sayre is somebody who I’ve respected for a long time. The work that he has done in the queer community, his performances and what he has to say with his work has always been very important and inspiring. So, to be honored by him and the group of people that he works with on the show is very flattering, obviously. You know, to get a Judy award, that’s pretty fancy. 

I read an interview that Anthony Roth Costanzo gave to the New York Times in September 2021 when you were doing Only an Octave Apart. He talked about the process of working with you and said, “I’m always looking for structure. And Viv is always like, ‘Don’t box me in because it’s not going to be as good.'” That sounded like something Judy Garland would say. How much of an influence has Judy Garland been on you both as a as a professional and as a person? 

When I was a kid, as everybody who grew up the generation I did, every year The Wizard of Oz played on TV. And every year I was terrified by the flying monkeys and the Wicked Witch and I identified with Dorothy Gale. Growing up in a small town as a queer person, you know that somewhere over the rainbow, bluebirds fly, why can’t I? That was the question I asked myself when I was very young.

Of course, when you’re young and you see these sort of tragic stories play out, they’re very dramatic. But now that I’m 61 and knowing that I’m a decade-and-a-half older than she was when she passed away, it gives you a different perspective. But she has given me, I don’t know, fodder and intellectual inspiration, I guess, for my entire life.

Has the role she’s played as an influence in your own life evolved as you’ve gotten older and as you’ve come to understand that she was much more than just the character of Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz? 

Yes. There’s no way that I think you could really understand fully what she experienced if you haven’t been in show business. I also feel like being a minority in show business, a marginalized sort of person, what people try to get away with because they feel like you are more powerless than they are, can be galling. But fortunately I have somehow managed to avoid that for the most part. I do that not by being in the mainstream, but by basically forging my own path. So I think maybe I learned that from her as a cautionary tale, as well as just the brilliance of her talent and hard work. 

In a 1967 interview that Judy Garland gave Barbara Walters on the Today Show she said, “I’ve gotten to the age where I rebelled, and I’m going to hit and hit back.” With all the political rhetoric that we’re facing right now, from all walks of life, about trans, non-binary people, what’s the best way to to rebel against that vitriol that accompanies these comments and actually inspires even greater vitriol?

My strategy, for the most part, has always been to put my body where it needs to be; whether it be on the street, whether it be at a protest, whether it be at a meeting or whether it be on the stage or sometimes on the screen. I feel like the most powerful thing that I can do as a trans person is live as full and rich and joyful a life as I can possibly live, in spite of all of that. I take a lot of comfort in knowing that the people who are coming after us are invariably much less happy and much less comfortable with who they are than we are. 

There’s that old axiom that success is the best revenge. But I think happiness is the best revenge.

I agree completely, and happiness is a skill that you develop and also something that you can’t be all the time. So if you aren’t happy at certain moments, you have to address them. I have a therapist who said, “Well, you are depressed, but you have a good reason for being depressed.” So work on getting through that, addressing it and dealing with it, and then hopefully it will pass. Sometimes it takes the medication, sometimes it takes therapy and sometimes it just takes time.

Kenny Mellman last year compared your level of fandom to Garland’s. “It’s as if Viv were a Judy Garland, but alive.” Of course, that sounds like a variation of your Whitney Houston joke. Your fans will know what I’m talking about, but what parallels do you see between your fan base and the fan base that Judy Garland has? 

They have, what was the line? Judy said they have good taste. I love my fan base and I’m proud of having a very intelligent, witty, and loyal fan base. I try to keep myself as fresh and invigorated for them as possible. It makes it easy because they’re so receptive to what I do and they’re willing to go with me where ever I may take them.

This year is the 55th anniversary of Judy Garland’s death. If 50 or 55 years after you’ve shuffled off this mortal coil somebody wants to prepare a Night of a Thousand Vivs, what would you like it to be? 

I couldn’t care less when I’m dead. I really don’t care. I don’t care if anybody ever remembers me after I’m dead or not. I don’t care about that, honestly. I just want to enjoy my life. That’s up to other people, too. I don’t have that kind of ego where I feel like, oh, I want to live on forever. I really don’t. I think that’s part of why I don’t make so many records, because I don’t really care. I’m not there when people listen to them. So I don’t get any pleasure out of them. You don’t make any money. 

I like singing live, and I guess that would be something also that I have in common with Judy Garland, because her live performances are so much more legendary, and the recordings of her live performances, than her studio records. There’s that chemistry that happens, the empathy and the relationship that you develop with the live audience, that you can’t really create. I think that’s also why working on Only an Octave Apart with Anthony in the studio might have been more powerful than doing solo records in the studio, because we were there together. We were performing for each other, and that, I think, ups the ante.

Even though there’s just a few weeks difference between when you debuted Rare Bird at Joe’s Pub and will now be doing it in San Francisco, does your relationship with the material change? Do you alter the show?

The material will not be the same because when I did the show here in New York, I did it with my full band. I’m coming to San Francisco with David Sytkowski, my pianist. He’s been with me at Feinstein several times now, but the only reason I ever wish I was more famous or more successful is so I could tour with my band because it’s so expensive. It’s impossible. But that doesn’t make the show any less interesting. I spent an entire career and it was just Kenny Mellman and I – pianist and singer on stage. I don’t feel like the audience is losing out on anything. But because of that, I have to work a little harder and come up with a different set list that has a lot of the same material, but some of the things just sounded better because you had background vocalists or just little things that technically wouldn’t work as well.

You’re going to Joe’s Pub for nine performances in late June which will be a completely different show.

Yes, that show is called Night Shade. It’s about how queer people exist at night and songs about nighttime and songs that you would listen to at night. I haven’t completely narrowed down the setlist yet, but I’ve been having a lot of fun picking it out.

When you said Night Shade, I thought, oh, it could be just the crap, the shade, we throw at each other. 

It could just be what we do with eggplant emojis.

You appeared in Desert In, which is a video series that Ellen Reid and James Darrah and christopher oscar peña did. I love how unconventional that series was. What stood out to you most about being part of of that? How much do you think projects like that and Only an Octave Apart, are going to inspire people to explore other ways of presenting music that may not be conventional, or may not even be music that they’re used to listening to?

That was an amazing experience and I felt so lucky to be able to do that during the pandemic. And I have to say, Ellen James and Brad Vernatter who’s the [General] Director at Boston Lyric Opera, found a way to pivot and keep all of these artists engaged and working throughout that pandemic. It was so great because each scene was written by a different composer. It was a huge amount of people and it was so much fun. James is a terrific director. It was a wonderful way of working that I would encourage more people to try because it really appealed to a lot of people.

I think the same thing with Anthony and I. You know cabaret is not one of the top genres in popular entertainment. But I’ve always tried to stay relevant because I just tell the truth. And the only truth I can really tell is my own truth. So working with Anthony and somehow contextualizing all of this opera music that he sings, which is so beautiful…But, you know, I went to his show Orfeo ed Euridice [at the Metropolitan Opera], which premiered last week. I turned to my friend after the show and I said, “The only problem with these operas and they’re all very old – the music’s beautiful, but the characters are all idiots.” You can’t believe how stupid these characters are. So I really love contemporary opera because contemporary opera, a lot of it appeals to a much broader audience because it’s hard to sort of take these things seriously if you’re there for a story because the stories are kind of simple.

During the pandemic James created videos for Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra that took classical music off of the concert stage and put it into our day-to-day lives and I feel like Desert In is part of that as well. That’s the way people are going to get seduced by the art form.

It was an interesting story that was kind of provocative. It had queer tales, it had heterosexual [tales], it had diversity and the writing was fantastic. Yeah, that’s what we need.

In André Breton’s Manifestos of Surrealism he wrote, “I have always been amazed at the way an ordinary observer lends so much more credence, and attaches so much more importance, to waking events than to those occurring in dreams.” You have spoken throughout your career about the role dreams play in your life and their significance. Is Breton right? How much does that perspective inspire you?

When I lived in San Francisco, I went to the Jung Institute and I did therapy there when I was in my 20s. When I moved to New York, I found an analyst who worked at the Jung Institute here. So dreams are very informative. Whether they’re waking dreams or just keys into what’s going on or your own anxieties, or how you relate to other people and how they appear when they’re in your dreams. So I think dreams are important. Also being in my 60s now and having had a lot of my dreams come true and finding out, you know, sometimes that’s a good thing and sometimes it’s not as exciting as you thought it would be. I think it’s important to never stop coming up with new ones.

It’s always important to realize, even when you have reached your dreams, that there are still more dreams.

Yes, absolutely. Because then if there aren’t, what’s the reason to be alive? My mother passed away last year and I told her the last day of her life how I was so fortunate to have her as a role model because she did not stop growing as a person. Becoming more open to new things and learning things and changing until the very last day of her life. And I hope that I can be that way as well.

Could you have dreamed that you would have this career, that you would be at this place in your life? 

Oh, yeah. And now I have to come up with new dreams. When I was in high school, I used to love The Merv Griffin Show because he had amazing people that were in New York that I had never heard of before. One of them was Alberta Hunter. She was this jazz singer who was successful in the 20s and 30s and into the 40s. But at a certain point, she stepped away from show business and became a nurse and she lied about her age. So when she was 70 or 72, they thought she was 65 and they forced her to retire from nursing. Then she was rediscovered and she put out a few albums and she had a residency at this club here called The Cookery every Monday night for years. And I thought, that’s how I want to end up.

I want to be an old lady who has a residency and a cabaret in New York and I can go sing my songs every week and never stop working. And that’s what I’m planning on. But I want more things to happen between now and then.

UPDATE: This story previously stated the the Joe’s Pub shows were sold out. They are not. Cultural Attaché regrets that error. There was a a link built into that paragraph where you can click co to purchase tickets and get more information.

To see the full interview with Justin Vivian Bond, please go here.

Main Photo: Justin Vivian Bond (Photo by Ruben Afanador/Courtesy Justin Vivian Bond)

The post CONGRATULATIONS: Mx. Justin Vivian Bond – 2024 MacArthur Fellow appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

All that success would certainly lead to multiple opportunities for both her existing works and for the commission of new works. But then COVID happened and works stayed on the shelf until performances resumed. As restrictions lifted the opportunity for world premieres came back, but Reid wanted to revisit those works to see what they have to say now as opposed to what they might have said had they been performed as previously scheduled.

Amongst those works is Floodplain which is being given its world premiere by the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra in three concerts beginning on May 12th. There was also TODAY AND TODAY AND TODAY AND TODAY AND TODAY AND TODAY AND TODAY AND TODAY AND TODAY AND TODAY which had its world premiere in February with the Seattle Symphony.

A lot to discuss with Reid for sure. What follows are excerpts from our conversation that have been edited for length and clarity.

What impact did winning the Pulitzer Prize, which you have described as “positive trauma,” have on you and your work?

I think it’s hard to know because you don’t know what the other side looks like. But I do think that as someone who has ideas that are outside the box, it’s allowed for me to have them heard a little easier, which is all the difference in the world, really.

And I think the biggest challenge for any composer today once you get a commission is finding where performances two, three, four and five are going to be.

Totally. But also you make getting a commission sound really easy.

Based on the conversations that I’ve had with other composers, commissions are easier to get than additional performances.

It’s true. Also, I like collaborating. I like things that are often a little nontraditional. So being able to bring those things into the world, there’s just a little bit more space to dream.

Floodplain was scheduled to premiere two years ago. You’ve stated that the pandemic allowed you a chance to revisit the work before LA Chamber Orchestra performs the work. Can you describe the fundamental changes between what you had written and what is being performed?

I have a few different ways to explain it. So the way that I like to work is I like to work on something a lot and then kind of put it on a shelf and work on other things and then come back to it, look at it, work on it a lot, put on the shelf and then when the deadline comes, clear everything off. You know, chop it up, mix it up, make it come together again.

I was on the second time of working through the material when COVID hit. So it wasn’t like I’m done. Final note. I had a lot of themes, a lot of material. I knew how I wanted some of it to flow.

I just made the commitment during COVID after things kept getting postponed that at a point I wasn’t going to work on something until I knew it was going to happen – as much as one can ever know anything, which is never. I decided to not work on things that weren’t within view. And so this one stayed on the shelf for a long time. I sometimes think about – this is so dorky – but think about composing like baking. You know, where part of the process of certain breads is this proofing* process? And some of them need to proof and some of them that changes the texture of the bread. So this piece proofed for a very long time.

When I got it down off the shelf I was like, What? What is this? What are you and what does this want to be? How can this feel relevant now? The work maintains a lot of the melodic themes and some of the chordal gestures. There is the rhythmic section and some other things that weren’t in the original sketches that kind of emerged from the long proof process.

Do you think that those who want to can find insight into your experience or your perspective of the COVID era or the pandemic itself?

That’s a little strong, I think. How to answer the question? It’s less direct. You know, the thing I like about the word Floodplain is it implies sometimes things go sideways. Not every day. Sometimes it’s going to flood and then otherwise it’s really fertile. So I think this kind of unpredictability, this kind of unsettledness that I still feel. I’m learning to trust and make plans again. I think some of those things are certainly somewhere in the work, but it’s not very specific.

Did the pandemic allow you time for introspection and did that change the way you thought about your work and/or how you want to express yourself?

I didn’t sit down and say, here’s what I want, X, Y, Z. But I think that any time anyone goes through anything challenging you just get to know yourself better. And you get to learn what what matters and that changes. I had to sit with myself a lot. There wasn’t as many distractions and there was a lot of unknown. And sitting with the unknown brought up some new things I’m interested in and things that I’m not interested anymore in a very clear way that it might have just taken a lot more time to find had we not had that experience.

I want to talk to you about Lunar Composition Lab, which I think is such an incredible thing that you and Missy Mazzzoli are doing in supporting female, non-binary and gender nonconforming composers. You’re six years in at this point. What impact would you like Luna and its graduates and fellows to have on the future of contemporary music? 

Great question. And the answer is kind of a non-answer, which is I want something that we can’t even see. For these fellows and alums, the fact they have their community, they have role models, they have mentorship, they have doors opening for them. I want for them to go somewhere that Missy and I and you can’t even envision. That’s what I want.

I know you’ve talked about how every project starts with a blank page. In Stephen Sondheim’s Sunday in the Park with George the first words are “White. A blank page or canvas. The challenge, to bring order to the whole through design. Composition. Tension. Balance. Light and harmony.” Do you see your challenges as more similar or more different than as it is expressed in the opening moment of that musical? 

I’m exploring my relationship right now with the blank page. I don’t know if that’s really accurate because we live in this multitude of our own imagination, so that the blank page is never blank. So I’m exploring how to start each piece actually with something on the page. Whether it’s finding a fragment of something and saying this is where we’re starting or the last pitch of the piece I just wrote. How actually to avoid the blank page because one hand it will be blank and it won’t be blank no matter what you do.

*proofing: the final stage of allowing dough to rise before baking

Main photo: Ellen Reid (Photo by Erin Baiano/Courtesy Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra)

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#1: The Return of Live Performances

There isn’t any one show that could top the fact that we were able to finally return to the glorious experience of live performance in theaters, concert halls, outdoor venues and more. As great as streaming programming, it could never replace the centuries old practice of communal celebration of life through plays, musicals, concerts and dance.

Yes there were new rules to get accustomed to. Some required masks, others didn’t. Proof of vaccination became required (and that’s a good thing in my book). The first time I returned to a theatre and found my seats was the best possible therapy for my soul. If you read Cultural Attaché I’m sure you feel the same way.

#2: Fire Shut Up In My Bones – Metropolitan Opera

While I wasn’t able to see Terence Blanchard‘s powerful and moving opera in person, I did take advantage of the Metropolitan Opera’s Live in HD series to see a live transmission from New York. Blanchard and librettist Kasi Lemmons have taken the memoir by Charles M. Blow and created an opera that is going to be performed around the world.

So rich is the storytelling, so brilliantly was the production directed by James Robinson and Camille A. Brown (who also choreographed), so spectacular was the singing, Fire Shut Up In My Bones was easily the single most impressive performance of the year.

Hopefully the Met will add additional showings of Fire Shut Up In My Bones via their Live in HD series or make it available for streaming online.

The opera will be performed at Lyric Opera of Chicago beginning on March 24th of this year. For more details and to get tickets, please go here.

#3: Caroline, or Change – Roundabout Theatre Company at Studio 54

I’ve been a fan of this Jeanine Tesori/Tony Kushner musical since I saw the first production (twice) in New York at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre in 2004. I loved the show so much I saw it a third time when it came to the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles later the same year.

Color me pre-disposed to like this revival. What surprised me most was that even though this Michael Longhurst production was more lavishly produced than the original, it never lost one bit of its heart. Hugely contributing to the emotional wallop of this show was Sharon D. Clarke’s towering performance as Caroline. She’s definitely going to receive a Tony Award nomination and deserves to win for her remarkable work.

Caissie Levy, Kevin S. McAllister, Harper Miles and N’Kenge all made incredible impressions. Plus it’s always great to see Chip Zien on stage – I’ve been a fan of his since Into the Woods.

If you are in New York or going this week, you still have time to catch this amazing production before it’s last performance on January 9th. For tickets go here.

#4: Santa Fe Opera 2021 Season – Santa Fe Opera

I had never attended a production at Santa Fe Opera prior to this summer. I don’t intend to miss any seasons going forward. This is a truly magical place to see opera. This summer found a smaller line-up than in non-COVID years, but the four consecutive nights in early August were a great introduction to this wonderful tradition.

On tap this year were The Marriage of Figaro, A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Benjamin Britten), the world premiere of The Lord of Cries (John Corigliano and Mark Adamo) and Eugene Onegin. My personal favorite was Britten’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s play.

Each night, however, had plenty of joys to be found: whether it was my second time seeing Anthony Roth Costanzo in a opera (the first being Ahknahten), revisiting the joys to be found in Tchaikovsky’s brooding opera, enjoying the staging of Mozart’s classic opera or experiencing the tailgating experience that is de rigueur before each performance.

I’m excited about this summer’s season as my favorite opera, Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, is being performed at Santa Fe Opera for the first time.

#5: West Side Story

I was completely skeptical about what Steven Spielberg would do with one of my favorite musicals. That he had Tony Kushner working with him gave me some optimism. Try as I could to wrangle details from colleagues who were working on the film, I was completely unable to glean any information about what kind of updating and changes were being made.

When I saw the movie on opening weekend I was thrilled to discover that my concerns had all been for naught. Simply put, I think this is a vastly superior film than its Oscar-winning predecessor. I’ve always found this Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim and Arthur Laurents musical emotional (let’s face it, it’s Romeo and Juliet), but seeing it so close on the heels of Sondheim’s passing probably intensified my emotional response.

Sondheim said how excited he was for audiences to see what had been done to West Side Story. I know he wasn’t a fan of the original film – feeling it was too close in presentation to the stage version – so I had my fingers crossed he was right. And he was. If you haven’t seen the film yet, do so. It’s the kind of film that must be seen on a big screen with terrific sound.

#6: Head Over Heels – Pasadena Playhouse

If you had asked me what the odds were that a jukebox musical using the songs of The Go-Go’s would be a show I would see at all, let alone twice, I would have given you huge odds against that happening. And I would have lost my shirt! What Sam Pinkleton and Jenny Koons did with this production was create the best party of the year.

Alaska 5000, Lea DeLaria, Yurel Echezarreta, Freddie, Tiffany Mann, George Salazar, Emily Skeggs and Shanice Williams put their hearts and souls into this story of family, acceptance and love. The all-female band rocked the house.

Both times I saw the show I opted for the on-stage/standing room seats and I wouldn’t have had it any other way. At the first performance Lea DeLaria made a comment during the show about my pants. For the second performance I had a better idea where to position myself to have an even better time than I did at the first performance.

This was a party I never wanted to end.

#7: desert in – Boston Lyric Opera

This streaming opera/mini-series is definitely not your parent’s opera. It is guided by its own rules as it tells the story of a unique group of strangers (or are they) who congregate at a seedy motel.

The music was composed by Michael Abels, Vijay Iyer, Nathalie Joachim, Nico Muhly, Emma O’Halloran, Ellen Reid, Wang Lu and Shelley Washington. The libretto was written by christopher oscar peña.

Appearing in desert in are mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard (for whom the project was written), soprano Talise Trevigne, Tony-nominated performer Justin Vivian Bond (Kiki & Herb Alive on Broadway), actors Carlis Shane Clark, Alexander Flores, Anthony Michael Lopez, Jon Orsini, Ricco Ross and Raviv Ullman with vocal performances by tenor Neal Ferreira, Tony Award-winner Jesus Garcia (La Bohème), baritone Edward Nelson, tenor Alan Pingarrón, soprano Brianna J. Robinson, mezzo-soprano Emma Sorenson and bass-baritone Davóne Tines.

The project was directed by James Darrah who also oversaw the Close Quarters season of films from Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra; directed a production of Les Enfants Terribles for Long Beach Opera (that took place in a parking lot) and, underachiever that he is, also directed The Lord of Cries at Santa Fe Opera.

You can still stream desert in. Go here for details.

#8: Cécile McLorin Salvant – The Ford

Without a new album to promote jazz vocalist Salvant took to the stage at The Ford in Los Angeles for a concert with Sullivan Fortner that was nothing short of pure joy. She and Fortner have such a musical bond that she can make up the setlist on the spot and he’s ready to dive right in to dazzle the audience. As they did on this late September evening.

The only problem with seeing Salvant perform is you can never get enough. Truly. Rare is the performer who can so thoroughly enrapture an audience with their skill the way Salvant can.

That should come as no surprise for an artist who has won three consecutive Grammy Awards for her three most recent albums. Her newest album, Ghost Songs, is being released by Nonesuch Records in March. No doubt the next Grammy Awards season will find Salvant’s latest album on their list of nominees.

#9: Billy Porter: Unprotected

Porter’s memoir was released in the fall and it is one of the most inspirational and entertaining memoirs I’ve ever read. He’s a Tony Award (Kinky Boots), Emmy Award (Pose) and Grammy Award (also Kinky Boots) winning performer. He’s also been setting the fashion world on fire with his inventive and creative looks on runways from the Academy Awards to the Met Gala in New York. Let’s just say he knows how to make an entrance.

In Unprotected Porter details the many obstacles put in his way through challenges at home to being subjected to harsh criticism from his church to casting directors who thought he was too much. Though it all he remains steadfast in his individualism and his talent. It’s a lesson we can all use. As he says in his memoir, “My art is my calling, my purpose, dare I say my ministry.” I, for one, found a lot to learn from his ministry.

Gay men and women are not the only audience for Porter’s ministry. The life lessons he endured and his response to them is precisely the nourishment our souls need today. You can also clearly hear Porter’s voice in the book. So engaging and entertaining is his book I read it in one sitting. I found it impossible to put down. I think you will, too.

#10: Ledisi Sings Nina Simone – Hollywood Bowl

Anyone who is brave enough to tackle material made famous by the incomparable Simone either has a lot of guts or a lot of talent. Ledisi proved she had both in this memorable concert at the Hollywood Bowl in July (which she performed elsewhere as well.)

Ledisi wisely chose not to emulate her idol. Instead she made each song her own while still retaining a sense of what Simone’s original recordings offered. She released a seven-track record, Ledisi Sings Nina Simone, but added more songs to her concert. It was particularly interesting to her performance of Ne Me Quitte Pas and then hear it performed by Cynthia Erivo less than a week later at the same venue. Who sang it better? Let each who saw both shows answer that question.

Runners up: Vijay Iyer’s latest album Uneasy; Veronica Swift for her album This Bitter Earth; The Band’s Visit touring production at The Dolby Theatre in Hollywood; Jason Moran solo piano performance as part of LeRoy Downs’ Just Jazz series; Springsteen on Broadway; MasterVoices’ Myths and Hymns and Cynthia Erivo singing Don’t Rain on My Parade at the Hollywood Bowl.

Here’s hoping there’s even more to see and hear in 2022. What’s on your list? Leave your choices in the comments section below.

Happy New Year!

The post Top 10 of 2021 appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

Our top pick this week is actually a twofer. Jazz vocalist Jazzmeia Horn, who has taken the world by storm since her 2017 debut album A Social Call, is featured in two concerts you’ll want to watch this weekend.

With several operas, a very wide range of dance, play readings and more, it will seem at first glance like a pretty intense selection of programs. However, nothing is what it seems this week. Read about each of these programs and you’ll find they almost all represent a new way of telling both familiar and new stories.

Here are the Top Ten Best Bets: June 18th – June 21st.

*TOP PICK* JAZZ: Jazzmeia Horn – SFJAZZ – June 18th – 8:00 PM ET/5:00 PM PT and Cal Performances on demand through July 21st

This week’s Fridays at Five offering from SFJAZZ is a 2019 performance from the 37th San Francisco Jazz Festival in support of her second album, Love and Liberation.

She rose to prominence after winning the 2015 Thelonious Monk Institute International Jazz Competition.

In a 2017 review of a performance Horn gave at Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola in New York, Giovanni Russonello wrote in the New York Times after calling her one of the most talked-about jazz singers to emerge since Cécile McLorin Salvant and Gregory Porter:

“…she’s possessed of some distinctive tools, all of which were on display: a pinched, sassy tone in the highest register; a fondness for unguarded duets with her bassist (at Dizzy’s, it was Noah Jackson); an array of rough, pealing nonverbal sounds that add drama to codas and interludes, hinting at meanings in the music that go beyond what fits on the page.”

Should you be unable to catch the streaming of this concert on Friday, there is an encore showing on Saturday at 1:00 PM ET/10:00 AM PT. Tickets are $5 which includes a one-month digital membership to SFJAZZ.

If you want to explore more of what Horn can do (and perhaps see and hear how she evolved her performances and her set list almost two years later), you can check out a concert filmed at New York’s Le Poisson Rouge in February of this year for Cal Performances.

That concert is available for on-demand streaming with prices ranging from $5 for Cal students and $15 per non-student viewers up to $68 for those who have the ability to pay.

Horn is a force to be reckoned with. These two concerts allow you to chart her growth as, we hope, a new album will soon be on the horizon.

OPERA: Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex – LA Opera – Now – July 18th

Igor Stravinsky composed this opera/oratorio in 1927. Based on the tragedy by Sophocles, it is a work for orchestra, speaker, soloists, and male chorus. If you believe you know well the story of Oedipus, I think you’ll be surprised at all the ultimately timely material to be found in this story.

For this filmed performance of Oedipus Rex, Los Angeles Opera has assembled a terrific ensemble.

Singing the title role is tenor Russell Thomas. The role of his mother, Jocasta, is sung by mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges. Creon and the Messenger are sung by John Relyea. Tiresias is sung by Morris Robinson. The role of the Shepherd is sung by Robert Stahley. Serving as narrator is Stephen Fry (via video).

James Conlon conducts the LA Opera orchestra.

I attended a rehearsal of this production two weeks ago (prior to a live performance in Los Angeles – LA Opera’s first live performance back in their home at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion). Collaborating with them is Manual Cinema. They are the Chicago-based company that did a truly memorable production of A Christmas Carol that was streamed last December (and was also a Best Bet).

At 50 minutes, this is a terrific way to get some opera into your weekend. And it’s free; though donations to LA Opera are encouraged.

If you want to see more of what Thomas and Bridges have to offer, let us remind you of LA Opera’s Signature Recital Series which has recitals by each of them available for streaming through the end of the month. Check out our preview here.

PLAY READING: Dear Elizabeth – Spotlight on Plays from Broadway’s Best Shows – Now – June 21st

You don’t need to know who poets Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell were. You don’t need to know that they became very good friends, mostly through the hundreds of letters they wrote to each other. Nor that they had an affair. You don’t even need to know that this play, which had its New York premiere in 2015, is written by award-winning playwright Sarah Ruhl.

All you really need to know about this reading is that it stars Kevin Kline and Meryl Streep. The two famously appeared together in Sophie’s Choice. This was the film that earned Streep her second Academy Award. They also appeared as exes in Jonathan Demme’s Rikki and the Flash in 2015.

Not to be outdone, Kline won an Academy Award for his performance in A Fish Called Wanda.

They appeared on stage in the 2001 production of The Seagull and the 2006 production of Mother Courage and Her Children at the Delacorte Theater as part of The Public Theater’s Shakespeare in the Park series.

This seems like a pretty easy choice to make for your weekend plans. Why not see these incredibly talented actors together again? This is the final play in the Spotlight on Plays series. They are clearly going out on a high note.

Kate Whoriskey directs.

Tickets are $19 and allow for streaming through Monday, June 21st at 6:00 PM ET/3:00 PM PT. Proceeds benefit The Actors Fund and The Acting Company.

OPERA/MINI-SERIES: desert in – Boston Lyric Opera – Now available

As befits a project from the mind of James Darrah, desert in does not fit easily into any one category. It is a mini-series. It is an opera. It contains nudity. There’s strong sexual content and adult language. It also comes from the minds of playwright christopher oscar peña and Pulitzer-Prize winning composer Ellen Reid.

In other words, it’s like nothing you’ve seen before.

The stories of multiple characters swirl around a lodge in the desert and its swimming pool. A combination of trysts, betrayals and shamanic ceremonies result in the lodge’s owners Cass and Sunny and new guests Ion and Rufus caught up in its mysterious ways.

Appearing in desert in are mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard (for whom the project was written), soprano Talise Trevigne, Tony-nominated performer Justin Vivian Bond (Kiki & Herb Alive on Broadway), actors Carlis Shane Clark, Alexander Flores, Anthony Michael Lopez, Jon Orsini, Ricco Ross and Raviv Ullman with vocal performances by tenor Neal Ferreira, Tony Award-winner Jesus Garcia (La Bohème), baritone Edward Nelson, tenor Alan Pingarrón, soprano Brianna J. Robinson, mezzo-soprano Emma Sorenson and bass-baritone Davóne Tines.

Joining Reid in composing music for desert in are Michael Abels, Vijay Iyer, Nathalie Joachim, Nico Muhly, Emma O’Halloran, Wang Lu and Shelley Washington. Each one a truly fascinating composer.

Six of the eight episodes have been released and are available for viewing on operabox.tv. The final two episodes will be released in the next couple of weeks.

You have several options for viewing with varying price points. You can subscribe to operabox.tv, purchase on-demand streaming of the entire series or for individual episodes. Details can be found here.

CLASSICAL MEETS HIP-HOP: Common with the Los Angeles Philharmonic – Debuts June 18th

We’ve previewed the second season of the LA Philharmonic’s Sound/Stage series, but can attest from personal experience that seeing Common on the stage of the Hollywood Bowl with the orchestra is an event like few others. Frankly, it’s almost one of a kind, except that they created this 17-minute film available for free streaming that didn’t come from that concert.

Common is one of the most important and exciting performers in hip-hop. Gustavo Dudamel leads one of the most adventurous orchestras in this country. This pairing is going to please those who can’t imagine hip-hop with classical music institutions and those who can’t imagine a symphony orchestra with hip-hop.

Other episodes in this series are available for streaming and can be found at the link above.

OPERA: This Little Light of Mine – Kentucky Opera in collaboration with the Santa Fe Opera – June 19th – 6:00 PM ET/3:00 PM PT

Here’s a great opportunity to see a work truly in development. The Santa Fe Opera commissioned this opera inspired by the story of Fannie Lou Hamer. She was a voting rights activist whose relentless efforts lead to the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965.

Chandler Carter is the composer of This Little Light of Mine. The libretto is by Diana Solomon-Glover.

The two had previously collaborated on No Easy Walk to Freedom about Nelson Mandela. Solomon-Glover portrayed Winnie Mandela in that work.

On Saturday they will be streaming a workshop of This Little Light of Mine that was filmed on Monday at Kentucky Opera. This opera had been scheduled for a workshop last fall, but was cancelled due to the pandemic.

Nicole Joy Mitchell sings the role of Fannie Lou Hamer. Aundi Marie Moore sings the role of Dorothy Jean Hamer and Heather Hill sings the roles of June Johnson and an Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee Worker. The workshop is directed by Beth Greenberg.

There is no charge to watch This Little Light of Mine. It will be available on Kentucky Opera’s YouTube channel.

ONE-ACT PLAYS: Unmasked: A Theatrical Celebration of Black Women’s Liberation – The Wallis – Debuts June 19th

The Wallis collaborated with Black Rebirth Collective on Unmasked, one-act plays by four Black female playwrights that was filmed in the Lovelace Studio Theatre at The Wallis.

Those writers are: Ngozi Anyanwu, Jocelyn Bioh, Dominique Morisseau and Stacy Osei-Kuffour.

Anyanwu is best known for Good Grief, an award-winning play that was first performed at the Kirk Douglas Theatre in 2016. Her play is called G.O.A.T. which finds three close friends who try to determine who is the greatest of all time (hence the title) through a sacred ritual.

Bioh, best known for School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play, has written White-N-Luscious. While appearing on a talk show a Nigerian pop star and an Afro-British scholar face issues of self-representation and beauty standards.

Morisseau, who was Tony nominated for writing the book for Ain’t Too Proud and also wrote The Detroit Project trilogy of plays, contributes Jezelle the Gazelle. As the title perhaps alludes to, the title character is a young female runner who is easily the fastest on her block. But does she have the skill set to navigate what life has in store for her and still remain on top?

Osei-Kuffour’s work is called Madness. While handling an issue at work on a phone call, the protagonist is offered a new way to address the situation by a new colleague whom she doesn’t know. Osei-Kuffour’s ANIMALS was recorded by the Williamstown Theater Festival and can be heard on Audible.

The ensemble cast – Kelly M. Jenrett, Masha Mthembu, Candace Thomas and Jonah Wharton – are accompanied by violinist Katherine Washington. Unmasked was co-drected by Kimberly Hébert of Black Rebirth Collective and The Wallis’ Camille Jenkins.

Tickets are $19 for all four plays. If you only want to watch one of the plays, you can purchase a single ticket for $5. Please go here for details on ticket sales. Unmasked will be available for streaming on demand through July 2nd.

BROADWAY VOCALS: Jenn Colella – SETH Concert Series – June 20th – 3:00 PM ET/12:00 PM PT

I’ve never been lucky enough to see Broadway star and Tony-nominated actor Jenn Colella in any of the shows in which she’s appeared (Come From Away, If/Then, Chaplin, High Fidelity and Urban Cowboy). But that last show did lead to a chance to see her early in her career and I realized how special she was immediately.

Colella was a guest at a concert by composer Jason Robert Brown in North Hollywood. (He music directed Urban Cowboy). When she sang a couple songs with him it was like the best possible hurricane just blew into and through the theater.

I can only imagine what Colella will do this weekend as Seth Rudetsky’s guest in his concert series.

If you’re unable to see the live stream on Sunday as scheduled, there will be a re-stream of the show at 8:00 PM ET/5:00 PM the same day. Tickets for either showing are $25.

DANCE: Broadway Bares: Twerk from Home – Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS – June 20th – 9:00 PM ET/6:00 PM PT

Just as Broadway is on the cusp of coming back comes an annual tradition that is one of the toughest tickets in town. And because Broadway isn’t back yet…we all get a front row seat.

Broadway Bares is an annual dance/performance fundraiser, usually performed on a Broadway stage.

For the uninitiated, it is one where clothes become less necessary as each performance goes on. This year’s show is called Twerk from Home and it will debut on Sunday night.

Two-time Tony Award winning choreograph Jerry Mitchell (Kinky Boots, the 2005 revival of La Cage Aux Folles), is the creator of Broadway Bares and once again he directs this year’s show. Joining this year as co-directors are Laya Barak and Nick Kenkel.

Over 170 dancers are participating in Twerk from Home. Joining them will be Harvey Fierstein, J. Harrison Ghee, Jay Armstrong Johnson, Robyn Hurder, Peppermint and Jelani Remy who make special appearances. This year’s Broadway Bares culminates in a finale extravaganza that was filmed outdoors in Times Square.

There is no charge to watch Twerk from Home, but donations are encouraged. This is one of their biggest fundraisers of the year. Last year’s virtual edition raised $596,504 for Broadway Cares. You can watch the show on BC/EFA’s YouTube Channel.

MODERN DANCE: Future Dance Festival – 92Y – June 21st – July 4th

From a pool of 185 applicants, seven panelists selected 21 choreographer finalists to be part of the 92nd Street Y’s first Future Dance Festival. The goal of the festival is to pair emerging choreographers and creators with working directors.

Beginning on Monday, those 21 finalists will have their work showcased in three different programs that will all be available for free streaming.

Program 1 features work by Annie Rigney, Max Levy, Madison Elliott, Leonardo Sandoval, Burr Johnson, Nicole von Are and Brian Josiah Martinez.

Program 2 features works by Barkha Patel, Adrienne Lipson, Jessie Lee Thorne, William Ervin, Vera Kvarcakova & Jeremy Galdeano, Brian Golden and Caroline Payne.

Program 3 features works by Taylor Graham, Baye & Asa, Patrick Coker, Charly and Eriel Santagado, Jamal Callender, Beatrice Panero and Nicholas Ranauro.

The panelists, who come from Ballet Hispánico, Dance Magazine, Martha Graham Dance Company and other organizations, will introduce each work.

Registration is required.

Here ends the Top Ten Best Bets: June 18th – June 21st. But just a couple reminders:

The Metropolitan Opera celebrates Father’s Day with Verdi’s Rigoletto from the 1981-1982 season Friday; his Don Carlo from the 2010-2011 season on Saturday and his Luisa Miller from the 1978-1979 season Sunday. If you’re not a father, consider this the end of Verdi Week.

Next week the Met will be celebrating Pride Week. Monday that program gets launched with the 2017-2018 season production of Thomas Adés’ The Exterminating Angel. We’ll have the full line-up for you on Monday. We strongly recommend this opera.

Your last chance to watch A Tribute to John Williams from the Boston Pops Orchestra is Saturday. Film music fans, what are you waiting for?

On Monday South Coast Rep starts streaming the final production of their Pacific Playwrights Festival. It’s a concert performance of Harold & Lillian. You can find details here.

You’re now fully loaded with options to enjoy the performing arts this weekend. That’s all for this week’s Top Ten Best Bets: June 18th – June 21st.

Enjoy your weekend!

Photo: Jazzmeia Horn (Photo by Emmanuel Afolabi/Courtesy imnworld.com)

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She just made her directorial debut with Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra’s Close Quarters series episode #12 (Beyond the Horizon – available for streaming here).

This Saturday she will join fellow opera singers Ailyn Pérez and Nadine Sierra in a streaming concert live from the Royal Opera of Versailles in France as part of the Metropolitan Opera’s Met Stars Live in Concert series. All three performed together in the 2017-2018 Met Opera production of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro.

In June she stars in Desert In which was created for her by director James Darrah, composer Ellen Reid and writer Christopher Oscar Peña and includes compositions by Reid, Vijay Iyer, Nico Muhly and more.

Leonard is known for singing the title role in Muhly’s Marnie; Blanche de la Force in Poulenc’s Dialogues of the Carmelites and Miranda in Thomas Adés’ The Tempest at the Met. She has performed in opera houses around the world since launching her career in 2007.

What better time to talk to Leonard about her new projects and the state of the arts in a post-pandemic world. What follows are excerpts from last week’s Zoom interview that have been edited for length and clarity.

I know you’re a big Ella Fitzgerald fan. Something she said sounds to me like a description of your career: “A lot of singers think all they have to do is exercise their tonsils to get ahead. They refuse to look for new ideas and new outlets, so they fall by the wayside. I’m going to try to find out the new ideas before others do.”

I am a huge fan. I couldn’t love that more. From the very beginning my hope was always to bring an experience to the audience. To spend a period of time experiencing something they may have never experienced. That’s all I’ve wanted.

I think anybody involved in the opera business knows how far behind we are in general. Even on days when I think I’ve come up with a new idea, it might be new to the opera world, but it’s not new to the world in general.

Is directing part of your path to realizing that goal? What prompted you to take on this project with LA Chamber Orchestra?

Mainly because it was James Darrah who asked me. There are a few people in this business who say you should take this risk and I’ll follow them. You meet people along the way who see things the way you do and understand what you want to do and see your vision. James is one of them. I’ll follow him blindly into fire. I was terrified and I said yes.

Isn’t that where the most rewarding experiences come from, jumping in head first into the unknown?

With this piece it’s sort of funny. I said once a week to James, “I don’t feel like I’m a director. I don’t feel like I’m directing anything.” And he said, “Welcome to the world of being a director.” I just remember we had a first initial meeting and this is what I’d love to see happen with music and storytelling.

I was very affected by Fantasia when I was a child. Most people, when you talk about classical music, they talk about Bugs Bunny or a car commercial or something tied to a visual. We’re super visual people. The better the visuals and music tell the story in tandem, the more successful we can be. That was my idea for this project.

Jessie Montgomery, who curated your episode, told me she was very excited to see what an opera singer would do with music that at its most fundamental level is based in improvisation. How did your training in the rigors of opera mesh with creating a visual style for these compositions?

For me the idea of improvisation in that sense is not terrifying. If you said go sing with a jazz band and improvise I could, but it wouldn’t be particularly good. Improvisation comes from knowing your craft so well that you can forget it. I had a dance teacher who said you have to practice until you forget it so that your brain doesn’t have to tell your body what to do. When I know a piece I don’t have to tell myself what to do.

Streaming works like Close Quarters and the upcoming Desert In are redefining how classical music and opera is presented to the world. What role do you see works like this playing in the future?

I think and I hope that most of the companies that have put so much time and resources and their learning curve into this little box will hold onto it moving forward because they see how valuable this is. To come up to speed is great – we should be here already. The next step is to keep moving forward and keeping find out the best way to bring what we do to a wider audience and inspire them to want new content.

In addition to catching up with the power of technology, is there any one thing that you think the classical music/opera world has learned and perhaps the world at large during this pandemic?

Contrary to popular notions that artists had a year off, most artists were hustling like crazy just to pay grocery bills. That was one major thing that everybody has been dealing with the entire time. I started teaching as soon as I could very soon after the pandemic started because I knew we were going nowhere fast.

I cancelled all my subscriptions except Netflix. I knew we’d need it.

This should be a huge awakening to people who look at movies and art about how valuable that art and those artists are because this is what got you through the pandemic. Imagine if none of this existed and you had 10 VHS tapes for the whole year and a half of the pandemic. You’d be nuts.

As soon as the pandemic started the first people out of a job were artists. That’s not to say, “Oh woe is us.” I still lead a very privileged life as many of us do. But when it comes to a business and trying to see the business grow and be more sustainable for those involved, it means things have to change.

It’s not going to be easy. Broadway is coming back. Classical music is coming back. It’s back, but everybody working in that building is not doing better. They might be performing, but they’re still struggling and maybe even more than they were before the pandemic. There’s so much to do.

What kind of change do you think will be necessary? And what changes do you want to make moving forward in your career?

It’s not about complaining, it’s about having a conversation 100 times with as many people as you can find. We’re all in that boat right now trying to figure out how to make this sustainable for those people in it. I don’t know how to fix it, but I do think about it a lot. All these things are really interesting moving forward in the arts.

For me it’s about working on projects that scare me like LA Chamber Orchestra or doing a crazy opera film like Desert In. I’d love to do movies and bring my talents into another medium. By doing so bringing people from that medium to say, “Oh, she does opera, let’s go see an opera.” Or “Who is this person? Let’s see Marriage of Figaro. Oh, she can be a boy, too, that’s interesting.”

We must remember how integral and how important what we do is because it brings a lot of peace, joy and cathartic moments. I have lots of hope.

Photo: Isabel Leonard in Desert In (Photo by Michael Elias Thomas/Courtesy Boston Lyric Opera)

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