Julia Bullock
(Dario Acosta)
Julia Bullock is coming home.
Bullock
— whose voice New York Times chief critic Anthony Tommasini has praised
with words like “plush, full and nuanced ... ravishing, impassioned” —
will give a recital at the Sheldon Concert Hall on Wednesday night.
It’s
part of a tour that will take her from San Diego to Washington, D.C. On
the program (which she calls “a nice mix” of music) are songs by
American composers, including Henry Cowell, Samuel Barber and William
Grant Still, along with some Ravel and works by Kurt Weill.
The daughter of Allyce Pletcher Bullock and the late Johnny
Bullock Jr., she grew up in Webster Groves and sang in a children’s
choir at Emmanuel Episcopal Church. Her stepfather, John Richards,
helped to introduce her to classical music and opera.
A onetime
Muny Kid, a 2005 graduate of John Burroughs and an alumna of Opera
Theatre of St. Louis’ Artists-in-Training program, the New York-based
soprano, 29, has won a host of prestigious awards and garnered rave
reviews for her singing in both opera and concert, both in the United
States and abroad, from Europe to South America to China.
Bullock
has intelligence and a social conscience to go with her vocal gifts; her
last St. Louis recital, in 2010, was a joint fundraiser for the
Shropshire Music Foundation, which brings music education and
performance programs to war-impacted children, and the St. Louis Center
for Survivors of Torture and War Trauma.
The last time she sang
here, in 2014, was in the “#WithNormandy” concert at Normandy High
School, where she performed alongside soprano Christine Brewer and
mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves and provided some of the afternoon’s most
exciting moments. This time, Bullock, and the music, will hold the
spotlight. “To be coming back to St. Louis and doing this is exciting,”
she says.
Bullock was just back from Washington when she found
time to sit down for a telephone interview. In D.C., the Sphinx
Organization, dedicated to encouraging diversity in the arts and
encouraging young musicians of color, awarded her the Sphinx Medal of
Excellence and a career grant of $50,000.
“I accepted the award at
the Kennedy Center, and then we had a performance at the Supreme Court
with Justice Sotomayor, which was just amazing,” she says.
The
Sphinx Award was particularly meaningful for Bullock. “I knew when I
started studying classical music that 99 percent of the time I’d be
doing repertoire by white people, predominantly by white men, and be
working mostly with white people. It wasn’t unfamiliar or uncomfortable
for me in any way, because I’m of mixed heritage. I did feel there might
be a denial of a part of myself.”
When she was younger, she says,
“I went through a time of being ashamed of sharing all of myself. I
wanted to shield pieces and parts, depending on the people I was around.
As time went on, I began to reject the self-imposed restrictions and
limitations that I was putting on myself about what it was to be a
classical singer, how I needed to look, how I needed to behave,
repertoire that I needed to sing. Now I’m unafraid to put all of me into
my programs, regardless of where I’m going and the communities I’m
singing in.”
The Sphinx Award confirmed to Bullock that she’d made
the right choices. “To have an organization (Sphinx) that promotes the
work of Latin American and black American performers call me and want to
acknowledge the work I was doing was a real affirmation of the shift”
she’d made.
She’s also preparing to perform at the Ojai Festival
this June. She’ll sing the American premiere of the chamber version of
Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho’s “La Passion de Simone,” an
opera-oratorio on the life of activist Simone Weil. She’s working with
collaborators to develop a new piece about Josephine Baker, to be given
there and at Berkeley.
***
Julia Bullock in recital
When • 8 p.m. Wednesday
Where • Sheldon Concert Hall, 3648 Washington Boulevard
How much • $20-$25 (students $10)
More info • 314-533-9900; sheldonconcerthall.org
Comment by email:
Comment by email:
Your articles are always timely and important,
However, It is still important when we refer to American
People of color, that they are addressed in
Capital letters. Thus always please type
'Black' Americans with a 'capital B' when
making such a reference in the article on
Julia Bulloch.
The mention of Latino Americans
was not typed as 'latino' with a lower-cased
'l'. In fact, the computer will automatically
correct to capital L.
The same should bedone for Black American
if it was done on a consistent basis in all publications,
especially in historical newspapers and other
print media such as the historic ST. LOUIS
POST-DISPATCH that should be familiar with
the decades-long NAACP fight to capitalize the
N in the designation Negro. The proper
category is African American, so there is no
question about capitalization.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Cleonis Golding
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