Many months in the past, when Julia Bullock was mapping out her Tiny Desk look, the emails about repertoire began flying forwards and backwards. She was meticulously stitching collectively seemingly disparate songs: some blues, folks, classical, some far off-the-beaten-path singer-songwriter materials and a track she’d by no means sung in public, written for her wedding ceremony.
I’ve discovered to not anticipate a tidy bouquet of German lieder when Bullock provides a recital. Sure, she suggestions her hat right here to Schubert with a feisty rendition of “Rastlose Liebe,” a two-minute tribute to stressed love. But this live performance spans 350 years, from Barbara Strozzi’s seventeenth century lament “Che si può fare,” sung with palpable foreboding, to the general public premiere of “Love Liberates,” by Nathaniel Stookey, to phrases by Maya Angelou.
Bullock has an affinity for Connie Converse, the enigmatic, mid-century singer-songwriter who mysteriously disappeared in 1974. “Talkin’ Like You (Two Tall Mountains)” celebrates independence, whereas an abbreviated model of “I Have Thought of the Lilies,” turns a perky paean into a non-public supplication.
Bullock’s meditative mixtape ends in protected haven, with Odetta‘s bluesy association of “Going House,” a track rooted in Dvořák‘s “New World” Symphony. Bullock reaches into her burgundy decrease register, and pianist Christian Reif depresses the comfortable pedal, to realize most consolation.
These songs refract love in varied tints, and additional illustrate why Bullock is considered one of at the moment’s most discerning and expressive singers. Up to date composers are notably enamored, together with John Adams, whose new opera Antony and Cleopatra Bullock will debut on the Metropolitan Opera in Might.
If you wish to know the right way to program and ship a vocal recital, that is your masterclass.
SET LIST
- Lovie Austin & Alberta Hunter: “Downhearted Blues”
- Barbara Strozzi: “Che si può fare”
- Nathaniel Stookey: “Love Liberates”
- Franz Schubert: “Rastlose Liebe”
- Connie Converse (arr. Bretton Brown): “Talkin’ Like You (Two Tall Mountains)”
- Connie Converse (arr. Bretton Brown): “I Have Thought of the Lilies”
- Antonín Dvořák (arr. Odetta/Bretton Brown): “Going House”
MUSICIANS
- Julia Bullock: vocals
- Christian Reif: piano
TINY DESK TEAM
- Producer: Tom Huizenga
- Director/Editor: Joshua Bryant
- Audio Technical Director: Josh Newell
- Host/Sequence Producer: Bobby Carter
- Videographers: Joshua Bryant, Maia Stern, Sofia Seidel
- Audio Engineer: Hannah Gluvna
- Manufacturing Assistant: Ashley Pointer
- Photographer: Zayrha Rodriguez
- Tiny Desk Workforce: Lars Gotrich, Kara Body, Dora Levite
- Government Producer: Suraya Mohamed
- Sequence Creators: Bob Boilen, Stephen Thompson
- VP, Visuals and Music: Keith Jenkins
