Waites first recorded Price’s music in 1987. When she takes to the stage of CAP UCLA’s The Nimoy on January 16th, she will perform work by both women and will be offering the first-ever performances of newly discovered and edited music by Price. The concert is called Momentum: Time and Space.

Momentum indeed. Last September Waites released her fourth album, Reflections in Time which found her performing music by Bonds, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and Jeremy Siskind.

Last week I spoke with Waites about her passion for this music, the current embrace of music – particularly Price’s, and about whether or not she considers herself a trailblazer. What follows are excerpts from our conversation that have been edited for length and clarity. To see the full interview with Waites, please go to our YouTube channel.

Q: You were one of the earliest proponents of the music of Florence Price, recording her work, I believe, in 1987. Did you imagine all that time ago that Florence Price would become one of the most performed composers in this decade? 

I really did not. You start out on a project, but you don’t really know how it’s all going to end. I did a cassette recording. A friend of mine, who did the first biography on Price, sent me a copy of the manuscript from the Library of Congress. She said, Althea, this would be a wonderful piece for you to learn. I didn’t know anything about the Price sonata or any of the other music. So I got the manuscript and started working on it. I was in Switzerland at the time and when I got back to the States, I made that a primary project. Then in 1993 I did the first commercial recording of the sonata along with some other short pieces that Price had composed.

Why do you think now is the time that Price has suddenly been embraced by major orchestras around the world and also soloists?

We’ve been talking a lot and experiencing a lot about diversity and inclusion. I’m old enough to remember growing up in the segregated South where music was being performed and it was a part of the cultural landscape. But certainly Black composers, performers were relegated to very limited kinds of opportunities. With the civil rights movement, all of the LGBTQ actions that are taking place now, there is interest in Florence Price’s music. 

In 2021, Classic FM had a list of the ten most important Black composers who changed the course of classical music history. There were only two women on the list: Florence Price and Margaret Bonds. What do you think their greatest contribution to classical music is?

They paved the way for traditional folk music that had been part of the Black experience to be included and to be recognized as a major component of that particular type [of music]. They were not away from doing European classical music or art music or the music of Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, etc. because they were classically trained. They incorporated all of that into their music. Price used the dances that came out of slavery and out of the music of the plantations in the South. Bonds did the same thing. Because of their classical experience, they also merged that particular form with everything else that they were doing. I think that that was their major contribution.

They paved the way for other women. They opened doors really for women at that time – even in my generation – to get out and play and perform and teach a lot of this music. Both Price and Bonds were teachers and fierce advocates for inclusion at a time when it was hardly popular.

You’re also a teacher. Do you think the act of performance is a lesson in teaching for anybody who gets to hear it? 

I totally agree. You can learn a lot, as I did just from listening to great artists and, of course, listening to it on the radio or television. A lot of my education, besides going to an academic institution, I went to concerts. My mother was a fierce advocate for having me experience all of that music.

We went to concerts in New Orleans, despite the fact that the large halls were not open to us. We heard the Met Opera every Saturday afternoon at 1:00. When I was old enough to read I would get the scores and follow along with whatever was going on. So teaching can happen in many ways, not just in a classroom. A lot of my education happened that way. 

You can’t find a lot of quotes by Margaret Bonds. But I did find one where she is quoted as having said, “Music has to be human and people have to like it. It has to move them spiritually and intellectually.” Do you agree with her and how does her music move you? 

I do agree. The whole idea is that people want to be moved by whatever it is that you do, whether you’re a pianist or if you play anything or if you’re a singer or whatever. If you cannot bring the emotional content to the experience that you have with your instrument, then I’ll say that you’ve fallen short of what your mission is. I think the primary mission is to move people emotionally so that when they walk out of the space, they say, wow, I heard something that really was special. I was really touched by that.

Does the music need to move you in order for you to play it?

Yes, I think so. I’m having that experience now with a couple of the things that I’m doing. There was a piece by Frederic Rzewski who was one of the primary exponents of social justice. He used a lot of those themes in his work. He wrote a piece called Down by the Riverside starting with [she sings] “I’m going to lay down my burden” and so on. Then in the middle of the piece it goes south. He takes a radical departure from the the tune that you’ve heard, which is very peaceful. All of a sudden you’re thrown into another world. That was the way he thought about it. At the end he brings all of that material back to the traditional tune. So, yeah, there must something in it, in any piece, that has to resonate with me. Otherwise, what’s the point?

Do you consider yourself a trailblazer? Somebody who has made it possible for younger generations who come up behind you to explore and make discoveries on their own of music, whether known or unknown?

I don’t want to pin any bouquets on myself. I mean, a lot of people have called me that. I say thank you. I appreciate that. What I believe is that whatever I have done in some small way, I’ll keep doing that. Whatever time I have left on the planet, I’m going to continue to support the younger generation. I don’t know if I would call myself a trailblazer. It’s nice to be thought of in that context, but, for me, it’s basically just doing the work. Doing some good work.

Quite some time ago there was a major discovery in Chicago in an apartment building that was being remodeled or a house that was being remodeled where they found a lot of Florence Price’s music, which helped further people’s awareness of Florence Price. Do you have optimism that maybe another miracle can occur and that we can find a lot more of this lost work somehow, somewhere?

I would think so, because people are really interested in it now. I do have to bring up at this juncture some work that a friend of mine, Michael Cooper [Professor of Music at Southwestern University], is now completing the first biography on Margaret Bonds. It was through him that I got these pieces that I’m going to premiere for The Nimoy concert.

Now he is a real trailblazer because Bonds lived in Los Angeles during the last 6 or 7 years of her life after Langston Hughes passed away. Michael has been doing research on where some of this music was. And I have a feeling that it’s going to happen with Price. He is also editing a lot of the music of Florence Price and he sends me things all the time about what he is working on. I owe him a great debt of gratitude because had it not been for him, I would not have known that these pieces exist.

What do you think the most important thing we as an audience can get from opening ourselves up to music? 

I think what has to happen with audiences is let’s get rid of the fear, if you will. Or the apprehension that you may have in your mind about, well, I’m not going to like this. You don’t know until you try and until you actually have the experience. Audiences have to really, I think, do more. And I think we should do more as artists to make that case to say, here is something new. It’s not going to attack you. I feel that’s part of my mission – to get people in the space. That’s where I am. A lot of the people that I work with are trying to get people out to listen.

How does the music you’ve recorded and the music you are now playing reflect where you are in your life today and the journey you’ve taken to get here?

I’m not getting any younger. I was telling my daughter that I’m never going to be 25 again, and that’s okay. I have to do a lot of things now that reflect where I am. I’ll be 85 at the end of this month. I’m grateful to be able to still go on. My body is changing and I have to do more now to stay in good shape. So I walk and I have a lot of exercises that I do. I don’t sit at the piano for ten hours! I practice, but I do get up and take my breaks and with tea and things like that. The exercises really help because if you’re not doing anything like that, then you really can’t present your best self to an audience.

I would also argue that music is a really great way of staying alive.

Oh goodness, yes. We need it now more than ever. The whole world is in a very agitated state. There’s a lot of horrible stuff that’s going on. Music is, I think, probably one of the most important tools. You can bring people together with that. It’s not that you have to say anything, but you can speak through your music. I think that that’s what Price and Bonds attempted to do.

That’s what you are able to do by performing the music.

I feel very, very grateful now to still be able to do this at this point in my life. Anybody else would be sitting in a rocking chair watching soap operas. But not me. 

To see the full interview with Althea Waites, please go here.

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A lot has been written about our lives today in the post-George Floyd era. For tenor Lawrence Brownlee, who made his Metropolitan Opera debut as Count Almaviva in Rossini’s Il Barbiere de Siviglia in 2007, not enough attention has been given to the triumphs of the African-American population in the United States.

So he set about creating a recording and concert called Rising that celebrates those triumphs through the work of poets from the Harlem Renaissance. Amongst the poets whose works have been set to music are Arna Wendell Bontemps, Joseph Seamon Cotter, Jr., Countee Cullen, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Georgia Douglas Johnson, James Weldon Johnson, Langston Hughes and Claude McKay.

Many of the works were newly commissioned by Brownlee for Rising. These include compositions from Jasmine Barnes, Shawn E. Okpebholo, Damien Sneed, Brandon Spencer and Joel Thompson. There are also compositions previously written by Margaret Bonds, Jeremiah Evans and Robert Owen.

On Thursday, March 23rd, he will perform Rising at Carnegie Hall in New York with pianist Kevin J. Miller who also appears on the album. That will be followed by appearances at the Kennedy Center on March 26th, the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia on March 29th, Ithaca College on April 1st and Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana on April 4th. The album will be released in June.

Earlier this month I spoke with Brownlee about Rising, the Harlem Renaissance and the poets chosen for the project. What follows are excerpts from our conversation that have been edited for length and clarity. To see the full interview, please go to our YouTube channel.

Writer, poet and activist Zora Neale Hurston, who established the Harlem Renaissance movement, said, “There are years that ask questions and years that answer.” Having commissioned Cycles of My Being, a song cycle about life as an African-American living in America by Tyshawn Sorey and Terrance Hayes in 2018 and now multiple composers for Rising, how would Hurston’s perspective apply to the time between these two projects and their relationship to one another? 

I believe as an artist that I’ve matured. I feel like I have a little bit more understanding what I want to say, what I feel like my audience is and my ability to get people interested using the writings of others. James Earl Jones talked about having a terrible stuttering problem and he had a theater teacher who told him that he could use the work of others to really be meaningful in his own work.

So I take the same thing and the work of Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, Jessie Redmond Fauset, Countee Cullen, Claude McKay and so many other people of the Harlem Renaissance that inspired us. A lot of people know about Langston Hughes and W.E.B. Du Bois, but they don’t know about James Weldon Johnson and some of the other people. What Zora Neale Hurston said, I think, is true. Time does focus you a bit. It gives you more insight. It gives you more perspective.

In the liner notes you say you wanted to create something that speaks “not just to our struggles but to our triumphs.” Has the attention, which is long overdue to the struggles, particularly post-George Floyd, meant that the triumphs have taken a backseat in both the national consciousness and in the conversation we’re having?

I think so. A lot of people focus on our struggles and they focus on the pain. These things are ubiquitous. They’re everywhere. They’re constant. People know about the suffering.

I specifically talked to these composers and said I want you all to choose your own text. We presented them with the texts. But I told them that I want them to focus, if they want to, on the joys, the passions, the triumphs. We love love. We love moving ahead in society. We love the positivity.

That’s what I wanted to show. I want to talk about the triumph, the joy, the relationships. That was really important in Rising.

Of the 29 selections that are on Rising, some of the compositions clearly predate the project. What was the process of selecting the other poems to be set to music and the composers who would write that music?

The thing I think Rising shows is that the wealth of the different voices and the different approaches in composition and their different influences. You could see some people were greatly influenced by jazz, some by gospel, some by a wide array of things, some by classical, some by Stravinsky. There’s a wealth of different styles and different voices that I hope people appreciate in this project.

There was one decision in the liner notes that I thought was particularly intriguing. You do not put any information as to who wrote which poems in the liner notes. After listening to it the first time, some of them I knew, but I spent the next 40 minutes looking them up to see who had written these poems. I assume you are trying to inspire people to be participants in this project?

Absolutely. I wanted people to go into search because if you put in Google “writers of the Harlem Renaissance,” there are not three. There are tons of them. People didn’t know who Arna Bontemps was. People didn’t know who some of these writers who have made such amazing contributions to to the canon of writing. I want people to go in that rabbit hole and to search. I’m thankful that I can be a part of the exploration. I hope people will take a really deep dive.

Amongst all the writers whose poetry is included in this album, it is no surprise that Langston Hughes is the predominant voice. What makes his poetry so appealing for a composer since countless composers have previously set his words to music? 

I think it’s accessible. I think there are some people who have a real gift. They are prolific in the writing. They can write on a number of different subjects. Langston Hughes is someone who’s been able to show that and demonstrated that – even with the six composers that we worked with on the album. Many of them focused on Langston Hughes. Not because it was easy, but because it inspired them.

Many of these composers that wrote for Rising, but also the ones before predating the project – and there are so many others that wrote with the words of Langston Hughes – did so because it was meaningful to them. They felt that they could say something with their own artistic voice using his work.

What are you able to say with your own artistic voice when you get to sing lines like “A lady named Day fainted away in the dark,” from Night Song which I think is spectacular. Or “In silence every tone I seek is heard” from Hughes’s Silence? 

[Composer] Robert Owens. I fell in love with his writing. Some of his songs are about 30 seconds, but they’re impactful. It gives me an opportunity to explore, to be expressive. Performing this recital that is all in English – as someone who does a lot of recitals that are different languages – and even in the different languages, I like to explore expressivity and to really be meaningful. But the weight of the word, how it falls on a language that is your own, it’s different.

“The lady named Day fainted away in the dark.” The setup for that has to be right so people feel the gravity of the situation. Using every tool that you can from a descriptive standpoint, but also a musical and artistic standpoint. I try to focus on the text and to couple it with what I’m given from the poet and the composer and my voice all come together, hopefully to create a special moment.

Langston Hughes knew there was a musicality to his his writing, didn’t he? 

Well, I think they all did. You have these people who being in the hot spotlight of New York. Could you imagine? The great jazzers, they were all there. Some of the great songstresses they were all there. New York was a hotbed. The great Sidney Poitier moved from Nassau, Bahamas, to be in New York City. He was a dishwasher before he became the great actor that he was. It was because he saw a movie with a cowboy on it and he wanted to be an actor. He came where? To New York.

The great Charlie Parker was in New York. The great Miles Davis was in New York. All these wonderful writers of the Harlem Renaissance. I’m sure that there was some cross-pollination and inspiration amongst themselves that maybe was even inspired by music they couldn’t get out of their head that Miles Davis played or the great Dizzy Gillespie played. It inspired their own creativity.

Do you think it’s possible to have another era like that?

Oh, I hope. I think it’s important for people of this time, like myself and others, to record. I think it’s something that we have to say. We want to contribute to the whole history of life and how it progresses even beyond 2000s into the 3000s. We can’t even think of that because I won’t be here in however many years from now. But I think people of this time have something to say about all the outside factors that affect who we are as people and artists. I think that will be important for people in the future. So much of what I’ve learned from these writers, from these musicians of the past, makes me the artist that I am today.

Langston Hughes was asked about the purpose of art and his response was “Perhaps the mission of an artist is to interpret beauty to people, the beauty within themselves.” How does Rising allow you to interpret the beauty within yourself and by extension, share that with your audience?

I like to think of myself as a vessel. But in being a vessel, I think people look at you and will make assertations about you. People will maybe size you up and try to imagine what it is that drives you. Being an expressive artist is sometimes about challenging my own self. What more can I do? What are the special moments that I can create? For me there is never a quantifiable perfect recital. I don’t think you can quantify what perfection is. But I think it is important as an artist to try and create special moments. The way that I can do that is with thought and intelligence.

I tell the students all time to make sure that you don’t ruin the payoff. Some of that is leading them to the water so they drink. But the time that they drink is by design. We can’t give them the payoff. That will be far more effective if it’s in the right place. So how do I do that? I do that with musicality, with intention, making sure the high point of whatever specific song is at a certain place.

That takes a lot of thinking. It’s not me just getting on stage singing the right notes and rhythms in the right times. It’s so much more than that. Someone told me the last thing you do is sing and all of the work comes beforehand. Getting that in line and having thought that out and gone through that, having performed it already, I feel now that I have a really good grip on what I want to say and being a more expressive artist.

To watch the full interview with Lawrence Brownlee, please go here.

Main Photo: Lawrence Brownlee (Photo by Zakiyah Caldwell Burroughs/Courtesy Warner Classics)

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Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Rock My Soul Festival, curated by Julia Bullock, has more exciting programming for its second full weekend. On Friday the orchestra will play works by contemporary composers Valerie Coleman and Courtney Bryan along with the Symphony No. 3 by Florence Price. On Saturday Rhiannon Giddens, whose opera Omar has its final performance at LA Opera on Sunday, will perform with the LA Phil and the Resistance Revival Chorus. Leading both shows from the podium will be Jeri Lynne Johnson.

Johnson most recently conducted the world premiere performances of This Little Light of Mine at Santa Fe Opera. She is also the founder and Artistic Director of Black Pearl Chamber Orchestra. In 2015 she founded DEI Arts Consulting “for cultural institutions seeking to create a culture of belonging.”

When you click on the about tab on her website, the page says “Black female conductor,” a title which is as unique as you think it is.

We spoke a few weeks ago while she was in New Mexico for This Little Light of Mine. We spoke about working with other women, the Rock My Soul Festival, opportunities she’d like to have and more. What follows are excerpts from our conversation that have been edited for length and clarity.

You’ve stated that it was a concert when you were seven years old that instilled in you this passion to be involved with music. Do you remember what was on that program and was there anything specific about that day?

I don’t remember the exact program. I just remember it was Beethoven. It was probably one of the odd numbered symphonies. It was the Minnesota Orchestra when Neville Marriner was the music director. As a young musician I was in love with music and as a pianist I realized I don’t see a piano on stage. I just figured out that what I have to do is what that man with the stick is doing. If I want to make that music I have to be a conductor.

They could have played a Beethoven piano concerto. Then what would you have done? 

You know that is a very interesting question. That has never occurred to me. I always loved piano, but I always wanted to be a conductor. I knew that I made the right choice because I never get nervous as the conductor. As a pianist you get so nervous in your hands and everything. I just never get nervous as a conductor. I always feel like I can trust the musicians, God forbid, if anything goes wrong.

What was your first reaction when you heard about the Rock My Soul Festival and what makes this festival unique? 

I think what makes this festival unique is the wide range of talents that people are going to see on the stage. Nowadays as artists it’s not unusual for us to have a variety of genres and styles that we’re fluent in. That used to be very frowned upon. In an earlier era you only did classical music. If you were to do anything else you didn’t tell anybody about it for fear that you wouldn’t be taken seriously as a classical musician. I think nowadays there is a willingness to recognize excellence across a variety of genres and styles.

We’re also doing, of course, compositions by women whose voices are typically underrepresented in music; folk living and who have passed on. I think the thing that connects these composers across time is their willingness to engage in the cultural issues of their day as composers.

For Courtney Bryant, her piece was about Black Lives Matter, especially after the murder of George Floyd. Florence Price and Margaret Bonds’s work was written in the era of the Harlem Renaissance. So there was a lot of connection around what it meant to be African-American, what it meant to be Black, what it meant to be Negro in America, as they called it. I wanted to engage with who they were as people and use their music to do so.

Julia Bullock told me she was really inspired by that relationship between Florence Price and Margaret Bonds and how she feels the world doesn’t allow for that much anymore because people seem to feel the need to be more competitive with one another. Has it really gotten to that point? 

If that is the case I have not experienced it. This is my first time working with Julia who is a lovely person. I work with a number of African-American women. For me, the experience has always been one of mutual respect and gratitude and recognition.

If we are all here at this place together, it is because we all have sacrificed a great deal to be there. We have all earned our place here. For me it has been nothing but mutual respect and collegiality and a willingness to also hold the door open for other people of talent that maybe we haven’t heard of. That we can connect through and find out about it without putting it a negative spin on it. The more that Black women in classical music are able to work with each other and collaborate, like on this festival, you begin to build that professional trust and that network so that you see more of us out there performing more regularly.

In a video that you did for Careers for Girls you mentioned that it was your job to express emotion from the podium so that you can get the emotion out of the orchestra. What emotional connection do you feel to the work of Florence Price and Margaret Bonds that you then plan to translate to the orchestra?

The connection for me, if I can be raw here for a moment and vulnerable and transparent, which I know is like a no-no for conductors, but it is the inherent understanding of genius, stifled genius, unrecognized genius, not given the support and the nourishment that it deserves and having to find its own way. I understand that completely.

I can’t tell you as a young conductor how many times I was denied opportunity or just not even paid attention to because of who I am. So I look at these works and women with enormous talent and such incredible gifts who, had they had the ability to work with someone like a Nadia Boulanger as Aaron Copland did, what more would we have seen from them? What we have is incredible and so interesting, unbelievably rich, complicated, complex and soulful. It brings tears to my eyes to see the level of excellence that their works are now commanding and the attention they’re getting.

You were talking about genius stifled and denied opportunities. It’s not an easy path being a woman who conducts classical music. I’m sure it’s even tougher being a Black woman who conducts classical music. How much more complicated does that equation become when you are a person of color?

The way that race and gender intersect in my career has been very interesting. Not everything that I’ve dealt with has been related to that. Conducting is hard, as you know. For young conductors, it’s just a difficult time. [Composer] Jennifer Higdon and I were talking and I was lamenting when I was younger, like, oh, this is never going to work. I should just give up and become a buyer for Neiman Marcus or something.

She told me this is a war of attrition. She said whoever lasts the longest lives. She talked about her experience as a composer, as a woman. So I have that tape loop in my head – this is a war of attrition.

I think the timing was just right now for me to had been working for this amount of time, to be holding my breath, to be in a position to be able to take advantage of when the L.A. Phil calls and when the Chicago Symphony calls and when Santa Fe Opera calls. The only thing keeping me from these positions before George Floyd was being a Black woman.

Now because I’m a Black woman people are now beginning to pay attention to me. The work has always been there. The study, the commitment to excellence of artistry, has always been there. The only thing has changed is people’s perceptions of where excellence resides as an artist and where it can reside and who can embody that on the podium. 

Is true systemic change going to happen without the same changes that we see on the stage taking place in the executive offices? 

You’re absolutely right that it has to be. There’s always a power dynamic in any of these relationships of who hires whom and who makes those decisions. We always tell our clients that that representation is not enough. It has to be true empowerment. Until there’s a very diverse setting at the table of who gets to make these decisions it’s always going to be a struggle.

I think there’s a lot of fragility around will donors accept this? Will they like it? Change is hard for anyone and you have to be prepared to lose some people along the way. Some people just aren’t going to want to change and that’s okay. But in order to do the work authentically, you have to be prepared to lose a little something in order to gain something on the other side. 

And how many Beethoven festivals does any one organization need to do every few seasons?

I’m going to put it out there in the universe. I really want to be the first Black woman to have a set of Beethoven’s nine symphonies recorded. It was kind of my dream as a young conductor so I’m holding fast to that.

I think since you’re making your Santa Fe Opera debut, you should also put on your list conducting the Ring Cycle. 

That is on my to-do list. I studied it extensively. I think of Wagner, as a person, as a really awful human being. But his music is just stunningly gorgeous.

Florence Price, in a letter to composer/conductor Serge Koussevitzky, then music director of the Boston Symphony, said, “Unfortunately the work of a woman composer is preconceived by many to be light, froth, lacking in depth, logic and virility. Add to that my race – I have colored blood in my veins – and you will understand some of the difficulties that confront one in such a position.” If you had a chance to update Florence Price about the world she so wanted to be a part of, what would you say?

I would give her the same advice that Jennifer Higdon told me: that it is a war of attrition. We fight these battles on hearts and minds and that art is a mighty warrior. And that people see you. People appreciate you and people understand you. The artists who understand your work, who understand your struggle, will find you. She’s having her moment and hopefully this moment lasts beyond the political interest of the moment and into real recognition of her as an artist and placing her and Margaret Bonds and others in relationship to their colleagues. 

Main Photo: Jeri Lynne Johnson (Courtesy LA Philharmonic)

The post Conductor Jeri Lynne Johnson: A War of Attrition appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

Pianist Michelle Cann didn’t necessarily know what she was going to find when she was approached in the spring of 2016 about playing Florence Price’s music. What she discovered, beyond a composition that excited her, was a composer who felt like a kindred spirit.

This weekend Cann is going to play several of Price’s works with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. The concerts are part of the Rock My Soul Festival.

Saturday and Sunday’s performances will celebrate the relationship between Price and another Black female composer of the era, Margaret Bonds.

Much of the music being performed is not part of the standard repertoire – even of works by these two women. Cann will be giving the world premiere performances of A Piece for Solo Piano and Orchestra after Florence Price’s “Fantasie négre No. 1.”

Last week I spoke with Cann about Price, other forgotten Black women composers and how Price has become her “soul sister.” What follows are excerpts from our conversation that have been edited for length and clarity.

Last October Classic FM published a list of the ten Black composers who changed the course of classical music history. Florence Price and Margaret Bonds were the only two women on that list. Given the discoveries that were made of their work, what are your thoughts or what is your awareness about other Black women who might have composed music whose works have remained relatively undiscovered or worse, lost forever?

That’s a really great question. I would say that it should encourage artists and musicians and scholars to ask those questions. If these two people, Florence Price and Margaret Bonds, could have had all these roadblocks, had all these different struggles to be appreciated, there has to be more.

I came across a number of composers that were either from or spent time in Chicago. That’s why their names came up. I was reading about the connections of Black artists, from musicians to poets to writers. There was a renaissance there in Chicago of these artists.

Betty Jackson King was a name that I came across that has this beautiful set of pieces, Four Seasonal Sketches. Another name I came across, Irene Britton Smith, was African-American and she also had some Native American blood in her. She knew Florence Price and was a huge fan, of course.  She wrote her a letter and Price responded. She kept this letter her whole life because it was such a big deal to her. 

This past year I came across the name Helen Hagan. She was the first Black woman to ever go to Yale [School of Music] and graduate from Yale. She went on to write this really great piano concerto, except that all we can find is the first movement. We can’t even find the rest. The one thing I will say that I found to be consistent across the board, from Florence Price to Helen Hagan, is all of them had the same kind of issue of not being fully appreciated during their time, especially when it came to publishing. More than half of their music is lost.

More than six years you got the call from The Dream Unfinished about Florence Price and her music. When you got to really sit down and look at the score for the Piano Concerto in One Movement, what stood out to you about her style of composing? 

I think what was really amazing for me, and still is, was that I got a very strong sense and connection to American Black music and culture. Throughout every section of the concerto, since it’s one movement, there were constant folk melodies. The second solo section is like a spiritual, and the last movement is, which I found out later, was the Juba* dance. It just reminded me of ragtime from that first reading. There was this complete sense that she loved and really understood and connected with all these different Black American music musical styles.

The other thing I love about her and the uniqueness of her as a composer was that she also really did bring in her training – the European style of composing. The way she structured the concerto that it fit into a certain structure that you would expect in a piano concerto from other well-known European composers. She clearly loved the Romantic Era because even the beginning of the concerto was very rhapsodic. You could imagine Tchaikovsky, Brahms, Rachmaninoff, any big romantic composer writing in a certain way that she did in this concerto. 

You’ve said in previous interviews about her music that you can hear folksongs, Saint-Saëns and now you mention these other composers. Folk songs have been a huge inspiration for classical composers for a long time. Where does her voice stand out above those references and those influences that you cited? 

Just like any composer there is obviously going to be this connection to what you grew up hearing. What you were taught from a young age, even all the way through college. All of these things are influencing your style of writing, whether you like it or not. She grew up in the South. She knew these dances. She grew up religious and in the church; she knew spirituals very well. All of these things were the backdrop of her life.

Meanwhile she was classically trained. She was a pianist. She played all of the standard literature and studied composition. So you see that side of her life. I find it very interesting when I see somebody who can literally just take every aspect of their life and the influences of their life and somehow make that into their own unique musical style. That to me is what stands out.

You’re going to be giving the world premiere of A Piece for Solo Piano and Orchestra after Florence Price’s Fantasie négre No. 1. Price was very much inspired by the spiritual Please Don’t Let This Harvest Pass. How does this new work by Michael-Thomas Foumai honor Price’s work and the spiritual that inspired her?

He doesn’t really change the music. What I appreciate is that Michael in no way set out to change her vision.

Generally speaking she did a lot of original things. In this particular Fantasie she takes a well-known spiritual. She clearly knew this and she knew it as a spiritual. It’s an amazing set of variations on this spiritual theme and brings it to life as one of her most significant piano works. The Fantasie is the longest and the most developed.

Now Michael is just continuing in that kind of progression, taking something that existed before Florence Price and that existed within Florence Price’s vision for a piano. He’s expanding that even more to be realized now by the orchestra. Which is exciting because, of course, the orchestra is going to be able to afford even more colors and more variety to what Florence Price was able to put on the piano with these variations.

How will performing this newly expanded work be different for you as a pianist?

The only thing that I find tricky is not playing. That’s the part I’ve had a hard time with because I’ve played it so much as a piano solo. I play everything and he gave parts to the orchestra. So even though he doesn’t change the music, he slightly changes when I play. It’ll be very interesting. I’m very excited. But I’m also so curious about how this is all going to feel when we put it together in rehearsal. 

Renowned opera and gospel singer Marian Anderson, who sang Florence Price’s music, said, “It is my honest belief that to contribute to the betterment of something, one can do it best in the medium through which one expresses oneself most easily.” How does playing Florence Price’s music allow you to express yourself most easily? 

From the very first introduction to her music with the piano concerto I just fell in love with her writing style. I felt that it fit me. 

I lived in a small town in Florida. I grew up in the church. I played in the church, sang in the church and knew all these spirituals. At the same time I had friends that were not classical musicians. So part of my life very much involved popular music. My dad is a music teacher and I played the steel drums and I played Caribbean and Latin music. Then I would go to my piano lesson to work on Beethoven and then go do a Mozart concerto for a competition. Then the next day go play calypso music with the steel drum band. So I literally grew up participating in music in all its forms.

I really love so many different styles, but I always felt like they had to be separate because that’s what it was.

We spent too long putting music into different boxes and saying, this music is for you. None other than African-Americans, more than anybody else, still to this day are pigeonholed into a certain type of music being, quote unquote, our music. I had to live feeling like I had to separate the sides of me instead of just embracing it all because it’s all really great. Music is something for us all to share, no matter what it is.

All that to say that Florence Price was an inspiration to me because she wasn’t afraid to do that. She would not let you put her in a box. She did not just write music of Black American people. She also didn’t just sit there and pander to the Romantic era and make everything just sound like Romantic era music that will sell. She wasn’t writing music based on what she thought would sell. She wrote what was part of her and inside of her. Her music is her soul.

I can’t find any other composer that spoke to me in such a very real and visceral way than Florence Price. Of all composers that I’ve come across, she’s like my soul sister, as some people would say. I feel that way when it comes to her and her music.

*A juba dance is an African style of dance that features slapping, stomping and patting arms, legs and other parts of one’s body. It is also referred to as “hambone.”

Main Photo: Michelle Cann (Courtesy Curtis Institute of Music)

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This year is going out with a bang for soprano Julia Bullock. She’s curated the Rock Your Soul Festival with the Los Angeles Philharmonic that starts in earnest on November 5th and runs through November 22nd. She has her first solo recording coming out from Nonesuch Records. It’s called Walking in the Dark. Finally she and pianist/conductor husband Christian Reif are expecting their first child any day now.

Rock Your Soul Festival was originally conceived by the LA Phil as a celebration of the work and friendship of Florence Price and Margaret Bonds. The title harkens back to a spiritual (Rock My Soul in the Bosom of Abraham) and a book by noted author and activist Bell Hooks (Rock My Soul: Black People and Self-Esteem).

Amongst the artists Bullock has assembled for the festival are soprano Michelle Bradley, mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges, pianist Michelle Cann (look for our interview with her later this week), singer/composer Rhiannon Giddens, conductor Jeri Lynn Johnson, singer/songwriter Meshell Ndegeocello and mezzo-soprano Jasmine White.

Walking in the Dark finds Bullock performing works by John Adams, Samuel Barber, Oscar Brown Jr., Connie Converse and Sandy Denny. It’s a beautiful record that is set for release on December 9th. Reif plays piano on the recording and leads the Philharmonia Orchestra of London as well.

Bullock’s pregnancy precludes her from performing in Rock Your Soul Festival, but it did allow for other opportunities which she described in our conversation recently. What follows are excerpts from that conversation which have been edited for length and for clarity.

I want to start by asking you about something you told Zachary Wolff in the New York Times in 2019. It was advice your mother gave you: “Make sure that your work is making a difference for the betterment of the world.” You seem to have taken up that challenge and made it your mission. How do you think that has made your career different than others and, by extension, more fulfilling for you? 

Well, I don’t know if it’s made it so much different from other people’s. I think every artist has a call in one way or another to have a mission or have their their passion realized. I don’t have a casual relationship with music. In fact, my desire to sing and also share music is because I know the impact that it’s had on my life and also how it’s enriched my life and helps me feel more interconnected and engaged.

I guess I’m always looking for ways to deepen that exploration and enjoy it in the process. I find that most of the artists whose work I really love also have this sort of mission. They’re very much conscious of the world that was going on around them and trying to make sense of it or call out hypocrisies. I’m not sure if I feel it’s so different than what other artists are doing. I guess I’ve just given myself permission to expand that in as many directions as I can imagine.

I would assume that in doing that, when someone like Peter Sellars says “Her path is going to be our path,” that’s got to be both hugely flattering and also a bit of a mantle to take on on a certain level.

I truthfully don’t like to be positioned in any capacity. I appreciate that Peter feels that the way that I work, the reflections that I have, and just the fact that I’m really dedicated to my craft and my own development and learning, is something that he wants to celebrate. I guess I celebrate that, too. That would be part of why, in the performing arts in particular, I don’t take that pressure on because that’s just a projection of something. The work that I do is not trying to live into some projection of Julia. 

In the liner notes for Walking in the Dark you conclude your statements in the liner notes with “If our intentions are translated well enough and are clearly in focus, it may lead to some moments of illumination.” What has been the process of making your intentions perfectly clear with the Rock Your Soul Festival?

It was their idea, not the title or anything like that, but just the proposal to curate a program that was focusing on the relationship between Margaret Bonds and Florence Price. Other than their vocal music and really just their songs, I was not too familiar with a lot of their repertoire – the breadth of their repertoire. It was an opportunity for me to again delve into some research and take six, seven months to consider the work of composers that I had not had the time or had this opportunity to look at.

I was reading about their personal lives and also this relationship of mutual support. They had this teacher (Price)/ student (Bonds) relationship. When there were really troubling times for Florence Price in her personal life she went and lived with Margaret Bonds for a period of time. That really communicated this beautiful thing. It wasn’t just about their artistic output. It was also about nurturing and respecting each other as human beings and fully supporting each other that way. That was something I really wanted to celebrate and acknowledge besides just sharing their repertoire.

Every single artist that was invited into the festival there is this feeling of mutual support. Every single composer that I know, that I work with personally and also the composers that I either read their letters or biographies, they openly admit how influenced they are by the people who are around them. And they seek out guidance and advice. They are influenced by what’s going on socially, politically.

I think we can learn a lot from what Florence Price and Margaret Bonds did in terms of shared experiences as musicians and as human beings. Because it goes without saying that a lot of people care more about ideologies and less about each other as human beings right now. Perhaps the festival can find a way to bridge that divide.

It can be very closed and people can get very closed. Growing up listening to recordings, my family had vinyls or cassettes playing all the time. A lot of the time we listened to music together. Even if I was alone I was still playing music, not locked into an earphone or earbuds privately, it was something that was heard in the house – the shared space. I think music can foster some really beautiful acknowledgment of each other. It’s not just some theoretical exercise. It’s like actually putting it into practice. I think that’s probably what drove me and that’s what drives most musicians to make music. Because you’re wanting a shared experience and wanting to share your own experience as well. 

Once you became pregnant and knew that being here for the festival wasn’t going to be possible did that give you any opportunities to make changes or add other things that maybe couldn’t fit into the program because you were a part of it at one point and now you were not? 

I’m sad. I’m just not going to be there. Obviously I’m growing a human being. So that’s what it is. 

I was supposed to perform History’s Persistent Voice, which featured a lot of contemporary composers who are all Black women. That was an hour-and-a-half program. I decided to save this for another season and think about another program.

That was a great opportunity to perform one of Florence Price’ full symphonies. It was also an opportunity then for me to think about the composers who were associated with History’s Persistence Voice and look at some of their other pieces and see if there was a way to feature their work. 

I’m really excited Courtney Brian’s Sanctum is included. Her work is just super powerful and I’m so glad that that is going to have a premiere at the LA Phil. Valerie Coleman’s selections from her Phenomenal Women will be featured as well. It’s the first time that she will have anything performed at the Phil.

Your first album is going to be something that was to be considered carefully. Now that you’ve recorded it, and I know from earlier in this conversation you haven’t listened to it recently, but what would you like listeners to know about you from hearing the choices that you made for Walking in the Dark and the performances you give?

What do I want them to know about me? I really hope it is just an invitation. All of the music that’s on this is material I’ve lived with for honestly two decades and some of it I’ve performed for a decade. The chance to lay it down and be a part of a recording legacy of some of these pieces that have also been recorded by so many different artists was a rare and wonderful opportunity. It’s not one that I take for granted.

Walking in the Dark, I mean the title of it. I didn’t write this in the liner notes and I’ve only brought it up to a few people, but I want to make it very clear that darkness is not something that should have, in fact, any kind of negative association. I feel in some ways that darkness, or blackness even, has been conditioned in certain parts of societies or cultures to have negative connotations and somehow promotes the idea of a white supremacist ideology. That really is not something that I can tolerate.

I guess it’s been something I have grappled with – a collective question about identity or I have felt that I have had to question my identity for a very, very long time. I made a lot of peace with who I am and how I also am expanding in the various roles that I can take on and feel comfortable in.

James Agee, who probably needs no introduction to you since his poetry inspired Samuel Barber’s Knoxville Summer of 1915 (which Bullock performs on Walking in the Dark), is quoted as saying, “Some people get where they hope to in this world. Most of us don’t.” I feel like in watching your career over the last number of years that you’re actively working through your art and through your activism to get the world to where you hope it will be. As a soon-to-be mother, what is the world you’d like to see your child living in and how do you think your art can pave a path for that to be a reality? 

Well, I hope that this child will feel safe. That the child will not be limited in anything that they want to invest in and enjoy. That there will be not be a lot of assumptions made or anticipated projections of this child and what they feel they have to represent so that they can just live their lives. But there’s something in safety that feels really important right now.

Photos of Julia Bullock (By Allison Michael Orenstein/Courtesy Askonas Holt)

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Written in 1936, Peter and the Wolf introduces the concept of instruments and themes through composer Sergei Prokofiev’s clever writing. Each of the main characters has a theme that is well defined by the narrator and subsequently played by the orchestra during the course of approximately 25 minutes.

You’ll certainly recognize Peter’s theme as it is one of the most popular and enduring pieces of classical music in the repertoire. Let’s not forget that Walt Disney made a short film of this story ten years after its debut.

Reading the narration for Peter and the Wolf has seemed like a rite of passage for many of our biggest stars (and some politicians, too.) Leonard Bernstein, David Bowie, Carol Channing, Bill Clinton, Alice Cooper, Sean Connery, Mikhail Gorbachev, Alec Guinness, Captain Kangaroo, Eleanor Roosevelt, Patrick Stewart, Sting, David Tennant and Peter Ustinov are just some of those who have performed and/or recorded this work.

Enter Davis. She has won two Tony Awards for her performances in King Hedley II and in Fences. She won her Academy Award when she reprised her role in Fences for the 2016 film version. She’s also the recipient of an Emmy Award for her role as Annalise Keating in How to Get Away with Murder.

Also on this program, the first official classical music performance of the 2021 season at the Hollywood Bowl, will be Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 1. It was composed from 1916-1917 and contains four movements. At a brief 16 minutes (or so), the work has obvious Mozartian influences, but Prokofiev’s own identity is clearly on display.

Closing out the first half of the program is a performance of selections from Montgomery Variations composed by Margaret Bonds. She composed Montgomery Variations as a tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr. during the Montgomery to Selma marches. Bonds, however, never heard the work performed. The manuscript was discovered after her death in 1972 amongst her archived materials at the Georgetown University Library.

Gustavo Dudamel will be leading the Los Angeles Philharmonic for this concert. Ticket can be purchased here.

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There are other concerts that are going to be familiar to those who frequent the Bowl. The annual Tchaikovsky Spectacular is back as is a salute to the music of film composer John Williams.

I’ve combed through the schedule and here are the shows that stand out to me as the best bets this summer for fans of the performing arts. They are listed chronologically.

CLASSICAL MUSIC: July 15th: Peter and the Wolf

Gustavo Dudamel leads the Los Angeles Philharmonic in a concert that will feature Oscar and Tony Award-winning actress Viola Davis narrating Peter and the Wolf (with music, of course, by Sergei Prokofiev). The composer’s Symphony No. 1 “Classical” opens the program. Margaret Bonds wrote the Montgomery Variations in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Selections from the work will be performed to conclude the first half of the concert.

JAZZ: July 18th: Kamasi Washington

If you watched the LA Phil’s Sound/Stage series you know how exciting a performer/composer Kamasi Washington is. (And if you haven’t, you should do so immediately.) Between the richness of his writing and the freedom he gives his very large band to improvise and contribute to the musical dialogue on stage, you will see very quickly why Washington is so highly-acclaimed.

As of press time, this is the only concert on his schedule. Opening is hip-hop artist Earl Sweatshirt. Both artists are from Los Angeles.

JAZZ: July 24th: Ledisi Sings Nina Simone

Singer/actress Ledisi is releasing an album of songs made famous by Nina Simone the night before this concert at The Hollywood Bowl. Ledisi Sings Nina includes such classic songs as Feeling Good, My Baby Just Cares for Me and Wild Is the Wind.

For this concert she will be joined by Thomas Wilkins leading the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

One week later she will be performing at the Newport Jazz Festival on July 31st and she’ll be at The Rady Shell at Jacobs Park in San Diego on August 17th. Wilkins will lead the San Diego Symphony Orchestra in that show.

I fully anticipate that Ledisi will put a spell on you at this concert.

BROADWAY/VOCALS: July 30th: Cynthia Erivo

Also releasing an album, her first solo recording, is the destined-to-be-an-EGOT Cynthia Erivo. (She’s only missing an Academy Award and that is certainly in her future.) That record, Ch. 1 Vs. 1, will be released on September 17th. The first single, The Good, came out last month.

The star of The Color Purple on Broadway and the recent Genius: Aretha Franklin will probably include songs from both her stage and screen career. She’ll be joined by Wilkins and the LA Philharmonic for this concert. At press time this was her only solo concert on her schedule.

I saw her in her Tony Award-winning role as Celie. She blew the roof off the Jacobs Theatre in New York every night. If anyone can make the shell of the Bowl levitate, it’s going to be Erivo.

CLASSICAL MUSIC: August 5th: Schumann & Beethoven UPDATED

Gemma New leads the LA Phil in this concert that opens with warp & weft by Sarah Gibson. She is a Los Angeles-based composer and pianist who also performs as a member of HOCKET.

warp & weft was given its world premiere performance in 2019 by the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra.

Pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason was scheduled to perform Clara Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A Minor. However visa issues got in the way. She is being replaced by pianist Behzod Abduraimov. He will be performing Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in C Major, Op. 15.

The second half of the program will feature the Rhenish Symphony No. 3 by Robert Schumann.

CLASSICAL MUSIC: August 10th: Dudamel Conducts Gershwin

What could be a better line-up of music for the summer than Cuban Overture, Rhapsody in Blue, An American in Paris and songs by George Gershwin? Obviously for fans of this composer (count me in) this is pure heaven.

Gustavo Dudamel will lead the Los Angeles Philharmonic for this concert.

Joining them will be pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet and counter-tenor John Holiday.

As part of the Sound/Stage series, Thibaudet joined the LA Phil to perform the jazz band arrangement of Rhapsody in Blue. Perhaps this will be the full orchestra version. I hope so!

CLASSICAL MUSIC: August 17th: Dudamel Leads Elgar and Grieg

Cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason joins the Los Angeles Philharmonic and conductor Gustavo Dudamel for a concert featuring the works of British composer Edward Elgar and Norwegian composer Edvard Greig.

Opening the program is Grieg’s immensely popular Peer Gynt Suite No. 1. From the opening notes of this work, you’ll immediately recognize it.

Kanneh-Mason joins for the chamber version of Elgar’s Cello Concerto. This was the composer’s last major work for orchestra. Kanneh-Mason’s 2020 recording with the London Symphony Orchestra and Simon Rattle received glowing reviews. Rob Cowan, writing for Gramophone, said of the performance:

“It really is a remarkable performance, one that has already given me enormous pleasure.”

The performance concludes with Elgar’s Enigma Variations.

CLASSICAL MUSIC: September 9th: Beethoven and Schumann

One month earlier you had the chance to hear what a piano concerto in A minor written by Clara Schumann sounds like. With this concert you can hear what Robert Schumann did with his Piano Concerto in A Minor, Op. 54. What makes this concert so appealing is the soloist, Hélène Grimaud.

Long a fan of Schumann’s work, Grimaud made her US concert debut with a performance of this work with the Cleveland Orchestra in 1990. Twelve years later she performed the concerto as part of her debut at Carnegie Hall. In other words, this piece has a special and substantial place in her heart.

The concert, lead by conductor Marta Gardolińska, will open with Overture by Polish composer Grażyna Bacewicz. After the intermission, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 will conclude the evening’s performance.

CLASSICAL MUSIC: September 14th: Yo-Yo Ma’s Bach Project

Bach’s Six Cello Suites will be performed by Yo-Yo Ma alone on the massive Hollywood Bowl stage. Almost exactly four years prior to this concert, he did exactly the same concert. The quiet, emotional and intimate music of Johann Sebastian Bach performed on a single instrument for two-and-a-half hours to an enraptured audience.

I know what you’re thinking, did this really work?

Here are some excerpts from Mark Swed‘s review for the Los Angeles Times:

“…the concert proved an unquestionably great, memorable Bowl occasion. …This audience sat in nearly unbelievable rapt attention focused on Ma as each musically complex and austere six-movement suite followed suite. …Extraordinarily, this had the effect of a kind of visual and aural intimacy you could never reproduce in a concert hall while at the same time producing a sense of awe being in a large outdoor arena where attention-deficit is normally taken for granted. With the Bowl doing everything right — the lighting, the mood, the outstanding sound system — Ma made the astonishing an argument against dumbing down.”

I certainly hope to experience this performance. If you do, don’t hesitate to get tickets. The previous performance was sold out.

JAZZ: September 26th: Herbie Hancock

He’s a legend. He always puts on a massively entertaining show. And I’d venture a guess by saying no two performances by keyboardist/composer Herbie Hancock are the same.

With a career that spans from Miles Davis to The Headhunters to his Oscar-winning score for Round Midnight, Hancock is always trying something new and pushing the definition of jazz into new areas. His support of young artists is also powerfully important.

There are no guests announced yet for this concert, but there will undoubtedly be many. He’ll be performing with his band (though wouldn’t a solo concert be amazing?).

I’ve seen Hancock several times and can strongly recommend seeing this concert.

Those are my selections as the best bets for the Hollywood Bowl 2021 season. If, like me, you enjoy a wide range of music, I recommend checking out the full schedule.

Coming soon will be my selection of the Best Bets at The Ford.

Leave a message in the comments section and let me know what you’re looking forward to seeing most this summer at the Hollywood Bowl.

Update: This post has been updated to reflect the change of soloists and material being performed on August 5th. Isata Kanneh-Mason was unable to get a visa.

Photo: Hollywood Bowl with Fireworks (Photo by Adam Latham/Courtesy Los Angeles Philharmonic)

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There are five recitals in the Signature Recital Series and once they debut they will be available for streaming through July 1st.

Up first – in a recital that debuted last Friday – is tenor Russell Thomas.

Filmed at Atlanta’s Spivey Hall, his recital finds performances of works Adolphus Hailstork, George Frideric Handel, Roberts Owens and Robert Schumann. He’s accompanied by pianist Mi-Kyung Kim.

Thomas was recently named an Artist-in-Residence with LA Opera. That announcement falls in line with something he told me was important for real progress in the performing arts when I interviewed him in 2018. At that time he was preparing to sing Verdi’s Otello with Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl.

“What happens when you diversify the back office then the stage will become diversified and then the audience. You can’t expect audiences to be diversified if they don’t see themselves on stage. …I understand everything is about dollars and cents, but I think the long term survival of classical arts is at stake. If you look around the room and everybody looks the same, there’s a problem.”

I attended that performance of Otello. Thomas is the real deal.

Thomas will be seen in Verdi’s Aida with the LA Opera during the 2021-2022 season.

The second recital is by mezzo-soprano Susan Graham and it will debut on April 23rd. She will be showcasing the work of composer Kurt Weill in this recital filmed at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles.

Amongst the songs she performs are I’m a Stranger Here Myself, Lonely House and September Song. Graham is accompanied by pianist Jeremy Frank.

She is one of those rare singers who embraces music from multiple periods of music. Graham is just as comfortable singing the work of Handel and Mozart as she is works by contemporary composers such as Jake Heggie and Tobias Picker.

Her next appearance at LA Opera will be in a performance of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion in the spring of 2022.

The third recital is by Wagnerian soprano Christine Goerke. This is billed as an intimate performance from New Jersey’s Art Factory with pianist Craig Terry accompanying her. The debut of her performance is scheduled for May 7th.

Goerke’s diverse program will include works by Brahms, Handel and Strauss, show tunes, Italian art songs and a song cycle by Carrie Jacobs-Bonds called Half-Minute Songs.

If you’ve watched any of the Met Opera streaming productions you might have seen her in Turandot and as Brunhilde in Die Walküre. I saw her sing excerpts from Götterdämmerung with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and was seriously impressed with not just the power of her voice, but also the quieter and softer tones as well.

The fourth recital is by soprano Julia Bullock with pianist Laura Boe. The performance was filmed at Blaibach Concert Hall in Germany. This recital will debut on May 21st.

On Bullock’s program are works by John Adams, Margaret Bonds, Robert Schumann, William Grant Still, Kurt Weill and Hugo Wolf. The finale is a series of songs from Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The Sound of Music.

Another singer who embraces both classic works and contemporary works, Bullock in the past few years has appeared in the world premieres of John Adams’ Girls of the Golden West at San Francisco Opera and Terence Blanchard’s Fire Shut Up in My Bones at Opera Theatre of St. Louis.

In 2019 she opened the Los Angeles Philharmonic season with a performance of Samuel Barber’s Knoxville. This was also a concert I attended and I can’t wait for an opportunity to see Bullock in a fully-staged production.

The last recital is by mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges beginning June 4th. Accompanied by pianist Howard Watkins, Bridges’ recital was filmed at Harlem School of the Arts in New York. The program has yet to be announced.

If you’ve seen any of the multiple streams of Philip Glass’ Akhnaten, you know how amazing she is. She also appeared in the composer’s Satyagraha at LA Opera during the 2018-2019 season.

How can you watch the Signature Recital Series? They are available as a package for $45 for non-subscribers and $30 for LA Opera subscribers. Single tickets are not available. However, regardless of when you purchase the package you will have through July 1st to watch each of the concerts. Tickets are available here.

Photo: Russell Thomas from his Signature Recital Series performance (Courtesy Los Angeles Opera)

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