Julia Bullock, Soprano - University of Florida Performing Arts

University of Florida Performing Arts
presents
Julia Bullock, Soprano
From Young Concert Artists
Saturday, January 10, 2015, 7:30 p.m.
University Auditorium
Sponsored by
Julia Bullock, soprano
Renate Rohlfing, piano
Program
From Chants de terre et de ciel
Olivier Messiaen
Résurrection
Dolce cominciamento
Luciano Berio
Stabat Mater (Mi lagnerò)
Gioacchino Rossini
La donna ideale Luciano Berio
Sorzico (Mi lagnerò)
Gioacchino Rossini
Ballo Luciano Berio
Métamorphoses Francis Poulenc
Reine des muettes
C’est ainsi que tu es
Paganini
From Chants de terre et de ciel
Olivier Messiaen
Bail avec Mi From Harawi
Katchikatchi les étoiles L’amour de Piroutcha
Intermission
Hommage à Joséphine Baker
Arrangements by Jeremy Siskind
Vincent Scotto
Armando Oréfiche
Mairiotte Almaby
Léo Lelièvre
Vincent Scotto
Léo Lelièvre
From Cinco canciones negras Xavier Montsalvatge
Mon coeur est un oiseau des îles La conga blicoti Madiana Dis-moi Joséphine J’ai deux amours Si j’étais blanche
Punto de Habanera
Chévere
Canción de cuna para dormir a un negrito
Brown Baby
Arranged by Jeremy Siskind
I Wish I Knew How It Feels to be Free
Arranged by Jeremy Siskind
Little David Oscar Brown, Jr.
Billy Taylor
Harry T. Burleigh
Arranged by Jeremy Siskind
Program Notes
From Chants de terre et de ciel
Résurrection (pour le jour de Pâques) (“For Easter Day”)
Olivier Messiaen
(Born in Avignon, France, on December 10, 1908; died in Clichy, near Paris, on April 27, 1992)
At the core of every note of Messiaen’s remarkable creations lie his deep and abiding
faith in God and His divine Son, Jesus. All his life he traveled widely and absorbed
deeply, but every influence, it seemed, was filtered through his own religious fervor.
The Japanese haiku that influenced his astonishing rhythmic complexities were, he
felt, phenomena that rose from Christian modes; the Utah landscapes of Bryce Canyon
had their basis for him in the Biblical Garden of Eden; the visually perceived colors he
experienced when he heard certain chords—a neurological function of the brain known
as synæsthesia—were God’s gift to his compositional process; his youthful love for the
fairy-tale element in Shakespeare prefigured his later expressions of Roman Catholic
liturgy. When composing, he was not interested in depicting theological matters such
as sin; for him the crowning achievement of life was joy, utter joy and the divine love that
redemption proved beyond a doubt.
The ecstasy that is everywhere present in his finest works is particularly present in the
sixth and final song of the cycle, titled ”Résurrection,” which blends an intoxicating
pageant of ravishing “alleluias” by the soprano voice, with burnishings of triumphant
chords in the fiercely difficult piano part.
I have not yet spoken of his second marriage, to Yvonne Loriod, a spectacular pianist
and former student of his, after Claire’s death in 1959. It was a union as happy as his first,
though without the imminent specter of Claire’s wretched health, and of almost equal
duration; Yvonne outlived her husband by eighteen years, dying in 2001. Once again, in
Yvonne’s contribution to his works Messiaen beheld the hand of God. About the quantity
of dazzlingly difficult piano music that flowed from his pen like freshets of water after a
spring thaw, he remarked in an interview that he always had Yvonne’s amazing pianism
in mind as he composed: “I am able to allow myself the greatest eccentricities because to
Yvonne nothing is impossible.”
In sum, Messiaen lived by and for his life-long credo—in his own words, “to be a musician
is to be a believer, dazzled by the infinity of God.”
From Quattro canzoni popolari
Dolce cominciamento
La donna ideale
Ballo
Luciano Berio
(Born in Oneglia, now part of Imperia in Italy, on October 24, 1925; died in Rome on May 27, 2003)
Berio was always delighted to be working with folksong, or, as he himself said, “I am
caught by the thrill of discovery; I keep trying to create a unity between folk music and
our own,” this despite the fact that his harmonic language is often “quirkily chaotic,” to
use another phrase of his.
The three songs, Dolce cominciamento (“Sweet Beginning”), La donna ideale (“The Ideal
Woman”), and Ballo (“A Dance”) date from his student days in Milan. Sixteen years
later, Mills College, in Oakland, California, commissioned him for a larger work based on
folksong, so Berio composed nine additional pieces, and the result was given its premiere
under his baton at Mills in 1964, with the gifted American soprano Cathy Beberian, whom
he had married in the meantime, (though their union was in its final years—not, obviously,
for musical difficulties, since the two continued to perform together with great success.)
All the Berio songs we hear this evening are light-hearted in spite of themselves. In
“Sweet Beginning” the two parts, one the soprano, the other the piano, seem to be playing
a kind of musical leapfrog with each other until the final measures when each seems
to have settled down. In “The Ideal Woman,” a young man is advised to question four
things as he searches for a suitable marriage partner: the girl’s family, her manners, her
figure, and her fortune. If those are all satisfactory, there’s nothing to worry about! And
in “The Ball,” the final song of the three, the singer laments that those who love the most
are the looniest, that the greater the love is, the more doomed to idiocy, all the time
ornamenting the song with little yelps of “la, la, la” as if to prove his point.
From Quattro canzoni popolari
Sorzico (“Mi lagnerò tacendo”) (“I complain but in silence”)
Stabat Mater
Gioacchino Rossini
(Born in Pesaro, Italy, on February 29, 1892; died in Paris on November 13, 1868; but his remains
were moved to the Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence, Italy, in 1887, at the request of the Italian
government)
Everyone knows, surely, how one of the greatest opera composers the world has ever
known suddenly stopped writing operas at all. It was 1829, and Rossini was living for the
most part in Paris; he was also 39 years old and he had completed 38 operas and felt it
was high time for a change, so he cut off all aspects of his former life with the precision,
almost, of a skilled surgeon, took up both cooking and eating on a prodigious scale, and
remarried after the death of his much-loved first wife, sua prima donna Isabella Colbran,
in 1845.
It may have been this second wife, also an excellent singer with professional training
named Olympe Pélissier, who little by little induced her husband to take up his pen again.
In any case he began to compose small pieces, mostly piano solos, but occasionally
choral works and some wittily whimsical songs that Olympe would occasionally trot out
as entertainment for their musical guests.
Most of these pieces were collected into 14 volumes that Rossini called Péchés de
vieillesse (“Sins of Old Age”). The “sins” showed, among other things, that Rossini had
lost not a scintilla of his ease in composition nor his own pianistic skills—his virtuosity
had been praised by Franz Liszt and Camille Saint-Saëns, who were themselves among
the reigning wonders of that age.
These engaging ditties enlivening Rossini’s “Sins” are a group that he collected into a
special Album de Château containing among other rarities six completely separate and
varied settings of a single text from Pietro Metastasio’s libretto for Siroe, beginning “I
shall complain, but in silence,” the lady, remains anything but silent. However, the two
miniature variations sung this evening (each one being no longer than twelve measures
of music) are not from this Album, but were found only as handwritten transcriptions.
This astonishing set of variations on a theme, so to speak, are called Scorzici, a virtually
obsolete word meaning approximately “afflictions,” which might necessarily be expected
to include a bit of caterwauling, though Rossini’s genius almost makes such vocal
complaint sound almost beguiling. The miniature Stabat Mater offers no relation to his
larger orchestral/vocal work, but the setting offers a sorrowful and plaintive recitation;
contrasted with the more pithy and spirited setting Zorsico, a Basque dane in 5/8 time.
Métamorphoses
Reine des muettes
C’est ainsi que tu es
Paganini
Francis Poulenc (1899-1963)
Parisian Francis Poulenc seemed destined to join the family pharmaceutical
manufacturing business. Though he took piano lessons from his mother Jenny, he was
forbidden from taking “formal” musical or conservatory training. The untimely death
of both of his parents – while Poulenc was still in his teens – changed all that. A family
friend became his friend and protector after his parents’ death and introduced him to
pianist Ricardo Viñes, who became the young orphan’s music teacher and mentor.
Paris was alive with the energy of the avant garde at the time and Poulenc landed in the
thick of it. In 1920, Poulenc became a founding member of a group of groundbreaking
French composers, Le Six, who held concerts and performances of new music. These
concerts were frequented by an audience dedicated to innovation and experimentation,
including painter Pablo Picasso, artist-writer-provocateur Jean Cocteau, and ballet
impresario Serge Diaghilev, among many others It was a heady mix, and helped set the
young Poulenc on his lifelong course.
The three songs titled Métamorphoses (1943), a setting of poems by Louise Lévêque de
Vilmorin (1902-72), are typical of Poulenc’s mature style, approachable, yet whimsical and
individual. Reine de mouettes (Queen of the Seagulls) is an homage to the “blushing rose”
of youth. C’est ainsi que tu es (It is thus that you are) is both lyrical and melancholy. The
tour de force is Paganini, Vilmorin’s love song to the violin and one of its most celebrated
virtuosi, Niccolò Paganini.
— Program note by Dave Kopplin
From Chants de terre et de ciel (“Songs of Earth and Heaven”)
Bail avec Mi (pour ma femme) (“Agreement with ‘Mi,’ for my wife”)
Olivier Messiaen
(Born in Avignon, France, on December 10, 1908; died in Clichy, near Paris, on April 27, 1992)
Messiaen met his wife-to-be, Claire-Louise Delbos, when they were both promising
students at the Conservatoire in Paris, his intent on becoming a pianist and composer,
she hoping to be a concert violinist and also a composer. Claire was the daughter of a
famous philosopher, Victor Delbos, who taught at the Sorbonne. The two young people
began playing recitals together in the early 1930s, ultimately marrying on June 22, 1932.
Messiaen soon began composing music addressed to “Mi,” his affectionate nickname for
her, such as Poèmes pour Mi, a song-cycle about the new couple’s happiness, and earlier,
in 1933, a Fantaisie for violin and piano which may never have had a public performance
in their lifetimes; it was inadvertently mislaid and not published until 2007.
Claire had herself been a gifted composer. One of her early works, much praised by her
husband, was a cycle of songs to poems by Olivier’s mother, Cécile Sauvage. In many ways
Claire’s future looked as bright as her husband’s, but early in her marriage she suffered a
series of miscarriages that ultimately proved disastrous, though a healthy son, Pascal, was
born in 1937, whereupon Messiaen produced another celebratory song cycle, Chants de
terre et de ciel (“Songs from Earth and Heaven”), about the blissful serenity produced by
the presence of a baby boy in their close-knit family. But a few years later, about the time
World War II ended, Claire underwent corrective surgery, which, alas, resulted in her loss
of memory and then gradually declining health, as one bodily organ after another betrayed
her. She spent her last years in a sanatorium and died in 1959 at the age of 56.
The voice and the piano in this six-part cycle of Earth and Heaven are equal partners,
each contributing, in Baudelaire’s well-known phrase, “à la force et à la beauté et, je dois
avouer, au courage de l’autre” ([each contributing] “to the energy, the beauty and, let it be
said, to the courage of the other”).
From Harawi (Chant d’amour et de la mort)
Katchikatchi les étoiles
L’amour de Piroutcha
Olivier Messiaen
Composed in 1945, Harawi is the first part of Messiaen’s ‘Tristan’ Trilogy, preceding the
Turangalila Symphony and the Cinq Rechants (both completed in 1948). The song cycle
takes its name from the “Harawi,” an ultra-romantic genre of Andean music which often
ends with the death of two lovers, thus providing a vehicle for the composer’s exploration
of the theme of love and death central to the myth of Tristan and Isolde, explicitly stated
in Messiaen’s subtitle, “Chant d’amour et de mort” (Song of love and death). The idea of
love and death obviously had a more personal significance to him than for Wagner; Claire
had begun to suffer illness in the years just preceding Harawi. Though the work bears no
explicit dedication to her, it is hardly possible that her condition would not have been at
the forefront of her husband’s mind while composing the songs.
The texts of Harawi are once again Messiaen’s own—almost all the poems of his songs
follow the example of Richard Wagner, who wrote the librettos for each of his late operas.
Messiaen’s texts are highly symbolic, and in addition to French words he occasionally
uses vocabulary from the Peruvian tribe Quechua, not as much for its semantic meaning
as for its timbral qualities; i.e., the onomatopoeic sounds that represent the ankle bells
worn by Peruvian-Indian dancers.
Hommage à Joséphine Baker
Arrangements by Jeremy Siskind (1986– )
When the African-American singer and dancer Josephine Baker sashayed out onto the
stage of the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris on the evening of October 2, 1925, the
curtains parted on the highly touted La Revue Nègre, with a shiny new star destined
to become one of the most brilliant performers in the history of entertainment, Miss
Josephine Baker.
In a year or two she had achieved the highest salary of any singer in France, had
her picture taken more often than even Gloria Swanson or Mary Pickford, and had
accumulated a zoo of exotic pets including a diamond-collared cheetah named Chiquita
who often appeared with her (and whose unplanned fall into the orchestra pit one
evening created a major sensation . . . and further swelled box office receipts for weeks
to come); a reputation for exuberant sexuality and revealing costumes that scandalized
even Paris. (Miss Baker saw her notoriety slightly differently: she told a reporter, “I wasn’t
really naked. I simply didn’t have any clothes on.” She felt somewhat the same way about
her much-alluded-to physical beauty, saying to the same reporter, “It’s all in the luck of
the draw. I was born with good legs. As for the rest . . . beautiful? No. Amusing, yes.”)
She was given to wearing “barely-there” costumes, among them her famous “banana”
skirt, comprising in its entirety 16 artificial bananas. And there was another fashioned
entirely of white feathers. Not to mention her “no-holds-barred” dance routines, about
which she said, “I was always crazed by the music. Even my teeth and eyes burned with
fever. Each time I leaped I seemed to touch the sky, and when I regained earth it seemed
to be mine alone.” A bit later, she remarked to another reporter who questioned her
about her dedication to her craft, “Is that what they to call a ‘vocation,’ what you do with
joy, as if you had fire in your heart and the devil in your body?”
About her singing there was never a question. To the reigning British chanteuse Shirley
Bassey, Baker went from “une petite danseuse,” with a decent voice, to “la grande diva
magnifique,” adding, “In all my life I have never seen, and probably never shall see again,
such a spectacular singer and performer.”
Ernest Hemingway called her “the most sensational woman anyone has ever seen,”
and with advance praise like that she had no trouble attracting a cadre of admirers that
included persons of such glittering repute as Langston Hughes, F. Scott Fitzgerald,
Pablo Picasso, and Christian Dior, not to mention a passionate group of perhaps 1500
gentlemen who individually proposed marriage, about at least one of whom—Joe Alex,
a fine baritone—she rhapsodized, “He was my cream, and I was his coffee. And when you
poured us together, it was something.”
She did of course marry several of the “gentlemen,” such as the “cute” American Willie
Baker, whose surname she adopted professionally when her career had reached its height,
and French-Jewish Jean Lion, thus achieving French citizenship for herself, and, finally,
Jo Bouillon, who helped her rear the dozen or so children whom she chose to form into
a family so as to illustrate that differing ethnicities could live together in simpatico
amity. Finally there was Robert Brady, with whom she sneaked into a wayside chapel in
Acapulco in September of 1973 to exchange marriage vows—which rite, because no clergy
was present, could not be a binding sacrament and had to remain pretty much a secret
forever, though Josephine was steadfastly devoted to Brady for the all-too brief remainder
of her life.
She had been born Freda Josephine McDonald on June 3, 1906, in Saint Louis, Missouri—
coincidentally the birthplace of Julia Bullock as well—where Freda, always on the fringes
of poverty in her youth, cleaned houses and baby-sat for wealthy white women who
warned her, “Be sure you don’t kiss the baby.” Such were the perils in those days. One
can imagine how eager she was, despite small successes in America, to embark for
faraway Paris. “One day I realized,” she wrote later, “that I was living in a country where I
was afraid to be black. It was a country only for white people. Not black people. So I left.
I felt I had been suffocated in the United States. Now, in Paris, I felt liberated.”
And thus began one of the most magical success stories in the realm of entertainment
history. It is a story that has long fascinated Julia Bullock, “I had been dreaming about
a set of Josephine Baker songs for at least six years, when I went to a concert a couple of
months ago played by Jeremy Siskind at the Cornelia Café in New York’s West Village, and
I thought to myself, ‘This, this is the guy, exactly the right person to make arrangements of
the Baker songs for me, with all that brilliant jazz pianism of his, and that ingenious musical
sensitivity . . . not to mention that I had known him from my time at Eastman.”
When Jeremy agreed, Julia’s dream was on its way to becoming reality . . .
Mon coeur est un oiseau des îles (My heart is an island bird)
Vincent Scotto
(Born in Marseilles on April 21, 1874; died in Paris on November 15, 1952)
La conga blicoti
Armando Oréfiche
(Born in Havana on April 1, 1911; died on Las Palmas, Canary Islands in 2000)
Madiana
Mairiotte Almaby
Dis-moi, Joséphine Léo Lelièvre
(Born on April 1,1872 in Rheims; died in Paris on March 31, 1956)
J’ai deux amours Vincent Scotto
Si j’étais blanche (If I Were White)
Lép Lelièvre
Vincent Scotto started his career in his native Marseilles as early as 1906 but soon moved
to Paris, where he met and became friends with novelist-playwright-cinematographer
Marcel Pagnol, whose many, many films include the two-part Manon of the Spring in 1952.
Scotto wrote music for several of these Pagnol achievements, as well as for other filmmakers, sometimes acting in them as well. His “Mon cœur est un oiseau des îles was a
Baker favorite and she recorded it several times, the most recent of which was chosen for
a 2011 album of songs ranging from 1930 to 1957.
“La conga blicotí” is by Armando Oréfiche, a Cuban composer and pianist. He recorded
this song with Josephine Baker, a recording that was used in a brilliantly nostalgic scene
of Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris.
Another Scotto song, J’ai deux amours, in a performance by Baker herself, was used in a
film by Alain Resnais, On Conaîtt la Chanson, released in1997.
From Cinco canciónes negras (Five Black Songs)
Punto de Habanera, Siglo XIII
Chévere
Canción de cuna para dormir a un negrito
Xavier Montsalvatge
(Born in Girona, Spain on March 22, 1912; died in Barcelona on May 7, 2002)
Montsalvatge was born in the Spanish town of Girona but spent most of his life in nearby
Barcelona, becoming one of its most influential citizens.
Montsalvatge studied violin and composition at the Barcelona Conservatorio but joined
the army at the time of the Spanish Civil War, after which he took a job as music critic for
a local newspaper, Destino, eventually being offered the editorship, while continuing to
write his own superb though infrequently heard music.
His most significant works came about after he discovered the West Indian music of
the Antilles, which he described as “originally Spanish, exported overseas, and then reimported to our country as a evocative kind of musical lyricism.”
Such a work is the Cinco canciónes negras, five settings of Catalan poets, among them
Néstor Luján, Nicolás Gouillén and Idefonso Pereda Valdés. Punto de Habanera was
inspired by the humor of the West Indies, over which Montsalvatge drapes only the gauziest
veil of Spanish musical style. In Luján’s light-hearted poem about a “ripe” young maiden
“adrift” in a billowing white hoop skirt being ogled by sailors, Montsalvatge adds deft little
dissonances in the piano, gently and playfully, with all the seriousness of a puff of smoke.
Guillén’s Chévere concerns a young black worker who “wields a flashing knife” and
becomes himself “a blade,” perhaps borrowing a metaphor from his countryman
Federico García Lorca’s tango poems, slicing at shadows and moonlight, attempting
unsuccessfully to sing, before going “straight after his woman.” Montsalvatge’s music
does not mirror the violent youngster of the poem, but it is dark and moody, perhaps
suggesting an unpleasant evening for the girl.
The mother who is attempting to sing her little boy to sleep in Valdés’ poem also
suggests slighty sinister overtones: if her baby will just go to sleep, he will no longer be
a slave forever; if he gets enough rest, his master may make him a groom and buy him a
fancy uniform. The music is a bit unsettling, a polytonal reminder that this mother is not
singing a conventional lullaby, all innocence and maternal sweetness.
Brown Baby
Oscar Brown, Jr.
(Born in Chicago on October 10, 1926; died there on May 29, 2005)
Arranged by Jeremy Siskind
Born and raised on the south side of Chicago, Brown’s father (Oscar Brown, Sr.) expected
his son to follow in his footsteps and become a successful and wealthy lawyer. Eventually
success did come to young Oscar, but first he had to serve his apprenticeship in
alternative careers like advertising and the army. But when Mahalia Jackson recorded
one of his songs, he was able at last to focus on a career in music.
His first album, Sin and Soul, was released in 1960, and on its cover were rave reviews
(already!) by jazz celebrities such as Nat Hentoff, Steve Allen, Dorothy Kilgallen, Max
Roach and Nina Simone, the last-named of whom was later to record a sensational
performance of Brown’s newest song, Brown Baby.
I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to be Free
Billy Taylor
(Born in Greenville, North Carolina, on July 24, 1921; died in New York City on December 28,
2010); arranged by Jeremy Siskind
British-born jazz critic Leonard Feather, author of several encyclopedic books on Billy
Taylor, gave him the indisputable title of “the world’s foremost spokesman for jazz.”
Ben Ratliff, in The New York Times, called him “a living refutation of the stereotype of jazz
musicians as unschooled, unsophisticated and inarticulate, an image that was prevalent when
he began his career in the 1940s, and that he did as much as any other musician to erase.”
A pianist with an impeccable technique and an elegant style, Dr. Taylor worked with
some of the most celebrated names in jazz, among them Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie,
Miles Davis and Herbie Mann.
As a boy, he made his first public performance on the piano at age 13, and was paid one
dollar. He moved to New York, where he fell under the salutary influence of Art Tatum,
who remained his mentor for many years.
In 1952, Taylor composed I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free, which reached
new popularity with the civil rights movement in the 1960s, and Nina Simone’s recording
on her 1967 album, Silk and Soul. In 1994, he was named the artistic director for jazz at
the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.; before that he
had started The Jazz Foundation to save the homes and lives of elderly jazz and blues
musicians.
Little David (Play on Your Harp)
Harry T. Burleigh
(Born in Erie, Pennsylvania, on December 2, 1866; died in New York City on September 12, 1949);
arranged by Jeremy Siskind
Frances MacDowell, mother of the famous American composer Edwin MacDowell,
helped get a scholarship for the young Henry Burleigh (now referred to as “Harry
Burleigh”) to New York’s National Conservatory, where he played double bass in the
school orchestra and assisted the renowned Antonin Dvorák, who had recently been
appointed director of the institution.
Not only did Dvorák introduce Harry to Czech music, but equally importantly, Harry
introduced Dvorák to American music, specifically Black-American music. Burleigh had
been doing odd jobs for Mrs. MacDowell, and was sweeping the conservatory’s floors, too,
and Dvorák often heard him singing spirituals as he worked, so he asked the boy to sing
for him, too. This may have been the way the pseudo-spiritual “Deep River” found its way
into Dvorák’s “New World” Symphony (which was premiered in Carnegie Hall in 1893, to
wild cheering).
Race reared its ugly head in Burleigh’s life. With his splendid baritone voice, he was
encouraged to apply for a job as soloist in the choir of St. George’s Episcopal Church.
Members of this all-white congregation were appalled. But J.P. Morgan cast the deciding
vote to hire him, and he spent a long career in the choir loft, making many friends.
In the late 1890s, he began to publish his own songs and his arrangements of Negro
spirituals. Soon they were being sung in concert by such internationally renowned artists
as John MacCormack. So popular did Burleigh’s arrangements become that few vocal
artists gave recitals without several of them on their program. The prestigious firm of G.
Ricordi, publisher of Giacomo Puccini’s operas, engaged Burleigh as an editor in 1910.
Little David, Play on Your Harp, based on the Biblical story of David strumming before
King Saul, is not, of course, an original Burleigh composition, having existed as a Sunday
School favorite since the mid-1860s, but it was Burleigh’s musical arrangement that made
it especially popular.
— Program annotations, save for those concerning Mr. Hertzberg’s music, written by Clair W. Van
Ausdall and affectionately dedicated to Susan Wadsworth and Young Concert Artists, Inc.
Text and Translations
From Chants de terre et de ciel (1938)
Résurrection (pour le jour de Pâques)
Olivier Messiaen
From Songs of earth and heaven
Resurrection (for Easter Day)
Alleluia, alleulia.
Il est le premier, le Seigneur Jésus,
Des morts il est le premierné.
Sept étoiles d’amour au transpercé, revêtez
votre habit de clarté. “Je suis ressuscité, je
suis ressuscité.
Je chante: pour toi, mon Père, pour toi, mon
Dieu, alleluia.
De mort à vie je passe.”
Un ange. Sur la pierre il s’est posé.
Parfum, porte, perle, azymes de la Vérité.
Alleluia, alleluia.
Nous l’avons touché, nous l’avons vu.
De nos mains nous l’avons touché.
Un seul fleuve de vie dans son côté, revêtez
votre habit de clarté. “Je suis ressuscité, je
suis ressuscité.
Je monte: vers toi, mon Père, vers toi, mon
Dieu, alleluia.
De terre à ciel je passe.”
Du pain. Il le rompt et leurs yeux sont
dessillés.
Parfum, porte, perle, lavez-vous de la Vérité.
Alleluia, alleluia.
He is the first, the Lord Jesus,
Of the dead, he is the first-born.
Seven stars of love to the transfixed, vest in
your habit* of clarity. “I am risen, I am risen.
I sing: for you, my Father, for you, my God,
alleluia.
From death to life I pass.”
An angel. On the stone he is posed.
Perfume, portal, pearl, unleavened bread of
the Truth.
Alleluia, alleluia.
We have touched him, we have seen him.
From our hands we have touched him.
A single river of life in his side, vest in your
habit* of clarity. “I am risen, I am risen.
I climb: towards you, my Father, towards you,
my God, alleluia. From earth of heaven I
pass.”
Of the bread. He breaks it and their eyes are
opened.
Perfume, portal, pearl, wash yourselves in the
Truth.
From Quattro canzoni popolari
Dolce cominciamento
Luciano Berio
Dolce cominciamento canto
per la più fina
che sia al mio parimento
d’Argni’infino a Messina
cio è la più avvenente.
Oh stella rilucente
che levi a la maitina
quando m’appare avante
li suoi dolzi sembianti
m’incendon la corina.
* habit — a garment; as opposed to/or maybe in
addition to: a ritualized practice, in this context
Sweet beginning
Sweet beginning, I sing
for the finest one
who in my opinion, may be
the most gorgeous
from Argni until Messina.
Oh shining star,
that rises in the morning,
when she appears in front of me,
her sweet countenance,
inflames my heart.
Stabat Mater/Mi lagnerò
Gioacchino Rossini
Text: Pietro Metastasio
Mi lagnerò tacendo
della mia sorte amara;
ma ch’io non t’ami, o cara,
non lo sperar da me.
Crudel’... no...
From Quattro canzoni popolari
La donna ideale
Luciano Berio
L’ómo chi mojer vor piar
de quatro cosse de spiar
la primiera è com’ èl è na
l’altra è se l’è ben accostuma
l’altra è como el è forma
la quarta è de quanto el è dota
se queste cosse ghe comprendi
a lo nome de Dio la prendi.
In silence I will complain
of my bitter fate;
but for me not to love you, oh dear one,
do not expect that from me.
Cruel one... no...
The Ideal Woman
If a man wants a woman,
there are four things to ask
the first is if she’s well-bred
another is if she’s well-mannered
another is if she’s well-shaped
the fourth is if she has a good dowry
if comprehensively she’s got it all
in God’s name take her.
Sorzico/Mi lagnerò tacendo
Gioacchino Rossini
Text: Pietro Metastasio
Mi lagnerò tacendo
della mia sorte amara;
ma ch’io non t’ami, o cara,
non lo sperar da me.
Crudel’... no...
From Quattro canzoni popolari
Ballo
Luciano Berio
La ra la ra la ra li...
Amor fa disciare li più saggi
e chi più l’ama meno ha in sè misura
più folle è quello che più s’innamora
La ra la ra la ra li...
Amor non cura di fare suoi dannaggi
co li suoi raggi mette tal calura
che non puo raffreddare per freddura.
In silence I will complain
of my bitter fate;
but for me not to love you, oh dear one,
do not expect that from me.
Cruel one... no...
Dance
La ra la ra la ra li...
Love drives out reason from the most wise
And he who loves most has the least
judgment
The most foolish is the one who’s most in
love.
La ra la ra la ra li...
Love doesn’t care about the harm he does,
His rays generate such a fever
that not even the cold can cool it.
From Métamorphoses
Reine des muettes
C’est ainsi que tu es
Paganini
Francis Poulenc
Text: Louise de Vilmorin
Reine des mouettes
Queen of the Seagulls
Reine des mouettes, mon orpheline,
Je t’ai vue rose, je m’en souviens,
Sous les brumes mousselines
De ton deuil ancien.
Rose d’aimer le baiser qui chagrine
Tu te laissais accorder à mes mains
Sous les brumes mousselines
Voile de nos liens.
Rougis, rougis, mon baiser te devine
Mouette prise aux nœuds des grands
chemins.
Reine des mouettes, mon orpheline,
Tu étais rose accordée à mes mains
Rose sous les mousselines
Et je m’en souviens. Queen of seagulls, my little orphan,
I saw you pink, I recall,
Beneath the muslin mists
Of your ancient sorrow.
Pink from loving the kiss which provokes
You surrendered to my hands
Under the muslin mists
Veil of our bond.
Blush, blush, my kiss finds you out
Seagull caught where great paths meet.
C’est ainsi que tu es
That is how you are
Ta chair, d’âme mêlée,
Chevelure emmêlée,
Ton pied courant le temps,
Ton ombre qui s’étend
Et murmure à ma tempe.
Voilà, c’est ton portrait,
C’est ainsi que tu es,
Et je veux te l’écrire
Pour que la nuit venue,
Tu puisses croire et dire,
Que je t’ai bien connue. Your flesh, mingled with soul,
Your tangled hair,
Your feet pursuing time,
Your shadow which stretches
And murmurs at my temple.
There, that is your portrait,
That is how you are,
And I want to write it down for you,
So that when night comes,
You may believe and say,
That I knew you well.
Paganini
Paganini
Violon hippocampe et sirène
Berceau des cœurs cœur et berceau
Larmes de Marie Madeleine
Soupire d’une Reine
Écho
Violon orgueil des mains légères
Départ à cheval sur les eaux
Amour chevauchant le mystère
Voleur en priére
Oiseux
Violon femme morganatique
Chat botté courant la forêt
Puits des vérités lunatiques
Confession publique
Corset
Violin sea-horse and siren,
Cradle of hearts heart and cradle
Tears of Mary Magdalene
Sigh of a queen
Echo
Violin pride of delicate hands
Departure on horseback over the waters
Love astride the mystery
Thief in prayer
Birds
Violin morganatic* wife
Puss-in-Boots ranging the forest
Well of lunatic truths
Public confession
Corset
Queen of seagulls, my little orphan,
You were pink, surrendered to my hands,
Pink under the muslin
And I recall the moment.
Violon alcool de l’âme en peine
Préférence muscle du soir
Épaules des saisons soudaines
Feuille de chêne
Miroir
Violon chevalier du silence
Jouet évadé du bonheur
Pointrine des mille présences
Bateau de plaisance
Chasseur. Violin alcohol of the pained soul
Preference muscle of the evening
Shoulders of sudden seasons
Leaf of oak
Mirror
Violin knight of silence
Toy evaded from happiness
Breast of a thousand presences
Boat of pleasure
Hunter.
* morganatic: denoting a marriage in which neither
the spouse of lower rank nor any children have
any claim to the possessions or title of the spouse
of higher rank
From Chants de terre et de ciel (1938)
Bail avec Mi (pour ma femme)
Olivier Messiaen
From Songs of earth and heaven
Bond* with Mi** (for my wife)
Ton œil de terre, mon œil de terre, nos mains
de terre,
Pour tisser l’atmostphère, la montagne de
l’atmosphère.
Étoile de silence à mon cœur de terre, à mes
lèvres de terre.
Petite boule de soleil complémentaire à ma
terre.
Le bail, doux compagnon de mon épaule
amère.
Your earthly eye, my earthly eye, our earthly
hands,
To weave the atmosphere, the mountain of
the atmosphere.
Star of silence at my earthly heart, at my
earthly lips.
Little ball of sun complimentary to my earth.
The bond, sweet companion of my bitter
shoulder.
*The prosaic word bail means ‘lease’ and refers, in
a very material and earthly way, to a temporary
contract. With marriage seen as something
provisional and impermanent, I offer in my
translation, ‘bond’
**Mi is the nickname Messiaen gave to his first wife,
Claire Delbos
From Harawi, chants d’amour et de
mort (1946)*
Katchikatchi les étoiles
L’amour de Piroutcha
Olivier Messiaen
From Harawi, Songs of love and death
Katchikatchi les étoiles
Katchikatchi the stars
Katchikatchi les étoiles,
faites-les sauter,
Katchikatchi les étoiles,
faites-les danser.
Katchikatchi les atomes,
faites-les sauter,
Katchikatchi les atomes,
faites-les danser.
Katchikatchi the stars,
make them leap,
Katchikatchi the stars,
make them dance.
Katchikatchi the atoms,
make them leap,
Katchikatchi the atoms,
make them dance.
Les nébuleuses spirales,
mains de mes cheveux.
Les électrons, fourmis, flèches,
le silence en deux.
Alpha du Centaure, Bételgeuse, Aldébaran,
Dilatez l’espace arc-en-ciel
tapageur du temps,
Rire ionisé, fureur d’horloge
au meurtre absent,
Coupez ma tête,
son chiffre roule dans le sang!
Tou, ahi! mané, mani,
Tou, ahi! mané, mani.
O
Roule dans le sang, roule dans le sang,
roule dans le sang, roule dans le sang!
Ahi!
The spiral nebulae,
hands of my hair.
Electrons, ants, arrows,
silence in two.
Alpha Centuare, Betelgeuse, Aldebaran,*
Dilate the rainbow space
raucous in time,
Ionized laughter, clock’s fury
to absent murder.
Chop off my head,
its figure rolls in blood!
Tou, ahi! mané, man,
Tou, ahi! mané, mani.
Oh
Roll in the blood, roll in the blood,
roll in the blood, roll in the blood!
Ahi!
* Harawi: Quechua is the indigenous Indian language * Alpha Centaur: the brightest star in the southern
constellation of Centaurus; brighter and more
of Peru. The name, Harawi, is a Quechua word
luminous that our Sun. Yellow in color.
referring to a genus of love song, which ends with
the death of the lovers. Like many great love stories Betelgeuse: the 8th brightest star in the night sky,
2nd brightest in Orion’s Belt. Red in color.
of the past, it is intensely tragic, notwithstanding
the mythological symbolism of sacrificial death as Aldebaran: one of the brightest stars in the night
sky.
the fulfillment of love.
Orange in color.
L’amour de Piroutcha
LA JEUNE FILLE
The love of Piroutcha
THE YOUNG GIRL
LA JEUNE HOMME
THE YOUNG MAN
«Toungou, ahi, toungou, berce, toi,
Ma cendre des lumieres,
berce ta petite en tes bras verts.
Piroutcha, ta petite cendre, pour toi.»
«Ton œil tous les ciels, doundou tchil.
Coupe-moi la tête, doundou, tchil.
Nos souffles, nos souffles, bleu et or.
Ahi! Ahi!
Chaînes rouges, noires, mauves,
amour, la mort.»
“Toungou, ah, toungou, cradle, you,
My cinder of luminaries,
Cradle your little girl in your green arms.
Piroutcha, your little cinder, for you.”
“Your eye all the heavens, doundou tchil.
Chop off my head, doundou, tchil.
Our breath, our breath, blue and gold.
Ah! Ah!
Chains of red, black, mauve,
love, death.”
“Art is an elastic sort of love.”
— Josephine Baker —
Mon cœur est un oiseau des îles
Text: Henri Varna
Vincent Scotto
My heart is an island bird
Mon cœur est un oiseau des îles
Qui ne chante que pour l’amour;
Dans tes bras il trouve l’asile,
Le nid fragile des plus beaux jours.
Car tout m’enivre quand je t’aperçois
Ma joie de vivre, chéri, c’est toi
Mon cœur est un oiseau des îles
Qui ne chante que pour l’amour
Tu m’as souri gentiment au réveil
C’est mon soleil
Tu m’as donné de la joie, de l’espoir
Jusqu’au soir.
Car tout m’enivre quand je t’aperçois
Ma joie de vivre, chéri, c’est toi
Mon cœur est un oiseau des îles
Qui ne chante que pour l’amour.
My heart is an island bird
Who sings only for love;
In your arms it finds asylum,
The fragile nest of the happiest days.
For all intoxicates me when I see you
My joy in life, darling, is you;
My heart is an island bird
Who sings only for love.
You smiled at me gently while waking up
This is my sunshine
You gave me joy, hope,
Until the evening.
For all intoxicates me when I see you
My joy of life, darling, is you;
My heart is an island bird
Who sings only for love.
La conga blicoti
Text: André de Badet
Armando Oréfiche
The Blicoti Conga
Ye!
Ye blicoti, holy moly,
Y’a plaisir, sì joli!
Quand la conga, ye blicoti,
Pour danser, retenti
Ye la conga, ye la conga blicoti
C’est la conga, ye blicoti,
Y avait mort, lui parti.
Ye blicoti, coty moly,
Y’a plaisir, sì joli!
C’est ainsi la nuit, sous un ciel de feu,
Loin d’ici comment de ces chants joyeux,
Dans les cœurs, l’amour fait sa loi vainquer,
Les temps sont fi-nuls ne dort,
déjà c’est un l’astre d’or.
Mais bientôt la conga devra finir,
Les coteaux verront le soleil venir,
Puis le jour au monde dira bonjour,
C’est au soir la danse à grande brise
Reprends toujour pour la nuit.
Ye!
C’est la conga, ye blicoti,
Il avait mort, lui parti
Ye blicoti, coty moly,
y’a plaisir , sì joli.
Ye!
Ye blicoti, holy moly
There’s pleasure, so nice!
When the conga, ye blicoti,
Resounded for dancing.
Ye, the conga, ye the conga blicoti
It’s the conga, ye blicoti,
There was death, he left.
Ye blicoti, coty moly,
There’s pleasure, so nice!
Thus in the night, under the sky of fire,
Far away from these songs of joy,
In hearts, love makes its law the victor,
These times aren’t for sleeping - no!
already there’s a star of gold.
But soon the conga will have to end,
The hills will see the sun approaching,
Then the day will say hello to the world,
It is at night that the dance
Always resumes in the high winds!
Ye!
It’s the conga, ye blicoti,
There was death, he left.
Ye blicoti, coty moly,
There’s pleasure, so nice!
Madiana
Mairiotte Almaby
Madiana, petit bijou des îles
Madiana, aux lèvres de corail
Ta bouche est une fleur fragile
De chair palpitante et d’émail.
Madiana, ton nom que je murmure,
Sur le ciel de mon pays charmeur
Est comme un chant dans la ramure
Berçant tes rêves enchanteurs.
C’est l’heure où la fougère endort,
Et comme tu seras mon abeille
Où là toutes roses, tout blanc
Grisent les amoureux de la terre.
C’est l’heure où je veux, dans tes bras,
Gouter de charmes de tes pareils.
Mon tendre dire sans cesse... Madiana
Madiana, petit bijou des îles
Madiana aux lèvres de corail
Ta bouche est une fleur fragile
De chair palpitante et d’émail
Madiana, ton nom que je murmure
Sur tout le ciel de ton pays charmeur
Est comme un chant dans la ramure
Berçant mes rêves enchanteurs.
Madiana, little island gem,
Madiana, with coral lips
Your mouth is a fragile flower
Of quivering flesh and enamel.
Madiana, you name that I whisper,
Across the sky of my charming country,
Is like a song in the branches,
Cradling your enchanting dreams.
This is the time when the fern sleeps,
And since you will be my bee
Where all roses, all white
Intoxicate the lovers of the earth.
Is it the hour where I want, in your arms,
To taste your charms.
My tender constant words... Madiana.
Madiana, little island gem,
Madiana, with coral lips
Your mouth is a fragile flower
Of quivering flesh and enamel.
Madiana, your name that I whisper,
Across the sky of your charming country,
Is like a song in the branches
Cradling my enchanting dreams.
Dis-moi Joséphine
Text: Henri Varna
Léo Lelièvre
Tell me Joséphine
Dites-nous, Joséphine
Puisqu’on te revoit,
Charmante et divine,
Dites-nous, Joséphine
Quel est cet émoi
Qu’en toi je devine ?
« Quelle joie pour moi de revenir
Et de retrouver mes souvenirs. »
Dites-nous, Joséphine
Oui, dites-nous pourquoi
Ton cœur s’illumine
Dites-nous, Joséphine
Si comme autrefois
Paris te fascine
«Vous le voyez bien par mon retour
La France toujours
Idéal séjour, aura mon amour. »
Tell us Josephine
Now that you’re reflecting,
Charming and divine,
Tell us Josephine
What is this emotion
in you that I’m sensing?
“What a joy for me to return
And retrieve my memories.”
Tell us Josephine
Yes, tell us why
Your heart is lit up;
Tell us Josephine
Is it just as before
that Paris fascinates you.
“You can see very well by my return,
That France, always,
ideal sojourn, will have my love.”
J’ai deux amour
Text: Géo Koeger and Henri Varna
Vincent Scotto
I have two loves
On dit qu’au-delà des mers,
Là-bas sous le ciel clair,
Il existe une cité, au séjour enchanté.
Et sous les grands arbres noirs,
Chaque soir, vers elle s’en va tout mon espoir.
J’ai deux amours,
Mon pays et Paris.
Par eux toujours,
Mon coeur est ravi.
Manhattan est belle,
Mais à quoi bon le nier:
Ce qui m’ensorcelle c’est Paris,
Paris tout entier.
Le voir un jour,
C’est mon rêve joli.
J’ai deux amours,
Mon pays et Paris.
It is said that beyond the seas,
There, under the clear sky,
There exists a city of an enchanted stay.
And under the big black trees,
Every night, all my hope goes towards her.
I have two loves,
My country and Paris.
By them always,
My heart is always delighted.
Manhattan is beautiful,
But to what end:
What enchants me is Paris,
Paris completely.
To see it one day
Is my lovely dream.
I have two loves,
My country and Paris.
Texts transcribed and translated by Ilana Zarankin and Julia Bullock.
Si j’étais blanche
Text: Henri Varna
Léo Lelièvre
If I were white
Je voudrais être blanche,
Pour moi quel bonheur
Si mes seins et mes hanches
Changent de couleur
Les Parisiens à Juan-les-Pins
Se faisaient droit
Au soleil d’exposer
Leur amour, un peu noir.
Moi, pour être blanche,
J’allais me roulant
Parmi les avalanches
En haut du Mont Blanc
Ce stratagème
Donne un petit rigole
J’avais l’air dans la crème
D’un petit pruneau.
Étant petite, avec chagrin
J’admirais dans les magasins
La teinte pâle de poupées blanches.
J’aurais voulu leur ressembler
Et je disais à l’air, accablé,
Me croyant toute seule brune au monde
Au soleil, c’est par l’extérieur
Que l’on se dore,
Moi, c’est la flamme de mon cœur
Qui me colore
I would like to be white,
For me what pleasure
If my breasts and my hips
changed color.
The Parisians from Juan-les-Pins*
Thought it smart
To expose to the sun
Their love, a little black.
Me, in order to be white,
I go rolling
Between the avalanches
In the heights of Mont Blanc.*
This stratagem,
Makes us laugh a little,
In the cream, I looked like
A little prune.
When I was young, with grief
I admired in the stores
The pale complexion of the white dolls.
I would have liked to resemble them,
And I said to the air, dejected,
Believing myself to be the only brown one in
the world.
In the sun, we make ourselves
gold on the outside,
But it is the flame of my heart
Which colors me.
Faut-il que je sois blanche
Pour vous plaire mieux?
Must I be white,
To please you better?
Texts transcribed and translated by Ilana Zarankin and Julia Bullock.
From Cinco canciones negras
Punto de Habanera (Siglo XVIII)
Chévere
Canción de cuna para dormir a un negrito
Text: Néstor Luján
Xavier Montsalvatge
Punto de Habanera (Siglo XVIII)
Habanera Point (18th Century)
La niña criolla pasa
con su miriña que blanco.
Qué blanco!
Hola, crespón de tu es puma.
Marineros, contempladla!
Va mojadita de lunas
que le hacen su piel mulata.
Niña, no te quejes,
tan solo por esta tarde.
Quisierra mandar al agua
que no se escape
de pronto de la cárcel de tu falda.
Tu cuerpo encierra esta tarde,
rumor de abrir se de dalia.
Niña, no te quejes,
Tu cuerpo de fruta está
dormido en fresco brocade.
Tu cintura vibra fina
con la nobleza de un látigo.
Toda tu piel huele alegre
a limonal y a naranjo.
Los marineros te miran
y se te quedan mirando.
La niña criolla pasa
con su miriña que blanco
que blanco! The creole girl passes by
in her white crinoline. *
How white!
Hey, the crepe of you is like a puma.
Sailors, examine her!
She walks wet from the moon droplets
that are on her dark skin.
Little girl, do not worry,
all alone this evening.
I would like to order water
not to escape
too soon from the prison of your skirt.
Your body encloses, this evening,
the murmur of the dahlia** opening.
Little girl, do not fret,
Your body is fruit
asleep in the embroidered breeze.
Your waist quivers finely
with the nobility of a whip.
All your skin smells joyfully
of lemon and orange.
The sailors look at you
and they keep looking at you.
The creole girl goes by
in her white crinoline
how white!
* a bustle; a stiffened or hooped petticoat
** a hollow stemmed flower, nicknamed a “water
pipe” in Spain
Chévere
Text: Nicolás Guillén
Cavalier
Chévere del navajazo
se vuelve él mismo navaja.
Pica tajadas de luna,
más la luna se le acaba;
pica tajadas de sombra,
más la sombra se le acaba;
pica tajadas de canto,
más la canto se le acaba,
y entonces, pica que pica,
carne de su negra mala.
carne de su negra mala!
Cavalier of the slashing knife,
turns himself into a knife,
He cuts the moon up in slices,
but he runs out of moon;
he cuts shadows up in slices,
but he runs out of shadows;
he cuts songs up in slices,
but he runs out of songs,
and then, slash by slash,
he cuts up the flesh of his bad black woman.
he cuts up the flesh of his bad black woman!
Canción de cuna para dormir a un negrito Cradle Song for a Little Black Boy
Text: Ildefonso Pereda Valdés
Ninghe, tan chiquitito
el negrito que no quiere dormer.
Cabeza de coco, grano de café
con lindas motitas,
con ojos grandotes
como dos ventanas que miran al mar.
Cierra los ojitos, negrito asustado;
el mandinga blanco te puede comer.
Ya no eres esclavo!
y si duermes mucho el señor de casa
promete comprar traje con botones
para ser un “groom.”
Ninghe, duérmete, negrito,
Cabeza de coco, grano de café. Ninghe, little tiny one
little black child who does not want to sleep.
Coconut head, coffee bean
with pretty freckles
with big eyes
like two windows overlooking the sea.
Close your little eyes, frightened boy;
the white boogey-man is going to eat you.
You are not a slave anymore!
and if you sleep a lot the master of the house
promises to buy you a suit with buttons
so you can be a groom.
Ninghe, sleep little black boy,
Coconut head, coffee bean.
Brown Baby
Oscar Brown, Jr.
Brown baby,
As you grow up
I want you to drink from the plenty cup
I want you to stand up tall and proud
And I want you to speak up clear and loud
Brown baby.
As years go by
I want you to go with your head up high
I want you to live by the justice code
And I want you to walk down freedom’s road
You little brown baby.
So lie away sleepin’
Lie away singin’
Lie away sleepin’
Lie away safe in my arms
It makes me glad
You gonna have things that I never had
Brown baby.
I wish I knew how it would feel to be free
Lyrics by Billy Taylor and Dick Dallas*
Billy Taylor
I wish I knew how
It would feel to be free
I wish I could break
All these chains holding me
I wish I could say
All the things I should say
Say ’em loud say ’em clear
For the whole world to hear
I wish I could share
All the love in my heart
Remove all the bars
That keep us apart
I wish you could know
What it means to be me
Then you’d see and agree
Every man should be free
I wish I could be
Like a bird in the sky
How sweet it would be
If I found I could fly
Oh I’d soar to the sun
And look down at the sea
Then I’d sing ’cause I’d know
How it feels to be free.
* “I Wish I Knew ...” was recorded by Nina Simone
on her Silk & Soul album released in 1967:
“What’s free to me? ... I’ve had a couple times
onstage when I really felt free; and that’s
somethin’ else. That’s really something else! I’ll
tell you what freedom is to me: no fear! I mean
really... no fear! Lots of children have no fear,
and that’s the closest — that’s the only way I can
describe it ... that’s not all of it, but it’s something
to really, really feel. Like a new way of singing.
Like a new way of seeing something.”
— Nina Simone
Little David (Play on Your Harp)
Text: Anonymous
Harry T. Burleigh
Little David, play on your harp, Hallelu
Little David, play on your harp, Hallelu.
God told Moses, O Lord!
To go down into Egypt, O Lord!
Tell ole Pharo; O Lord!
Loose my people,
O Little David, play on your harp, Hallelu,
Little David, play on your harp, Hallelu.
Down in de valley, O Lord!
I didn’t go to stay; O Lord!
My soul got happy, O Lord!
An’ I stay’d all day,
O Little David, play on your harp, Hallelu
Little David, play on your harp Hallelu.
Julia Bullock, soprano
Winner of the 2014 Naumburg International
Vocal Competition, soprano Julia Bullock has
been hailed as an “impressive, fast-rising soprano
… poised for a significant career” (The New York
Times). Her busy 2014-2015 season begins with a
performance of Delage’s Quatres poèmes hindous
with the Sphinx Symphony Orchestra and a
recital at Napa’s Festival del Sole. She performs
recitals and educational outreach programs at
the University of Florida Performing Arts, Alys
Stephens Performing Arts Center, the Levine
School of Music, and Music for Youth, as well as
recitals at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum,
the National Museum of Women in the Arts, San
Francisco Performances, Rockefeller University,
the Michael Schimmel Center for the Arts at Pace
University, and Carnegie Hall Neighborhood
Concerts. She will also be featured in the New
York Festival of Song’s At Harlem’s Height
program on tour and at Merkin Concert Hall,
as well as in the Mondavi Center’s Rising Stars of Opera. She reprises the title role in
Henry Purcell’s The Indian Queen, directed by Peter Sellars at the Perm Opera House,
and at English National Opera later this season. She was acclaimed for her performance
of the role last season in Perm and at the Teatro Real in Madrid; a DVD of the Madrid
production will be available this season.
Ms. Bullock has performed the title role in Massenet’s Cendrillon with the Juilliard Opera,
as well as Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen, both to rave reviews. Opera News wrote
of the latter, “Julia Bullock as the titular vixen led the way in terms of clarity of delivery
and beauty of sound. Her broad range of expression allowed her to be impetuous and
demonstrative … then opulent and glorious.” Ms. Bullock has toured South America as
Pamina in Peter Brook’s award-winning A Magic Flute; and toured China, singing with
the Bard Music Festival Orchestra. Other opera roles include Susanna in Le Nozze di
Figaro, Monica in The Medium, and the title role in L’Enfant et les Sortilèges.
She made her San Francisco Symphony debut last season in West Side Story in Concert,
conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas; an album of the concert was released on the
orchestra’s label in June 2014. The San Francisco Chronicle wrote: “The evening’s most
remarkable showstopper, Julia Bullock, appeared out of nowhere to deliver a full-voiced
stunningly paced account of Somewhere—for just a moment, it seemed as though nothing
Bernstein ever wrote was quite as magical as that one song.”
Ms. Bullock has performed contemporary works at the Ojai Music Festival and the
MUSIC ALIVE! series, curated by composer Joan Tower and pianist Blair McMillen;
collaborated with early music ensembles, including the Clarion Music Society;
and explored lesser-known repertoire with the American Symphony Orchestra in a
performance of Delage’s Quartre poèmes hindous. She has also appeared with the New
York Festival of Song at Caramoor, with the Cecilia Chorus and Orchestra at Carnegie
Hall, and the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society at the Kimmel Center.
She enjoys the collaborative process with both established and up-and-coming
composers. In 2011, she attended SongFest in California as a Stern Fellow, where she
worked with pianist Roger Vignoles and composers John Musto and Libby Larsen. Ms.
Bullock has sung in master classes with bass-baritone Eric Owens at Juilliard, soprano
Jessye Norman at Zankel Hall, and José van Dam at Opera Bastille in Paris. She also
performed in the Dawn Upshaw/Donnacha Dennehy Workshop at Carnegie Hall,
premiering pieces written for her by young Chinese composer Shen Yiwen.
Winner of the 2012 Young Concert Artists International Auditions, Ms. Bullock made her
recital debuts at Merkin Concert Hall and the Kennedy Center to critical acclaim. At the
Auditions, she was also the recipient of five special prizes: the Alexander Kasza-Kasser
Prize, concerts at the Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in Germany, the University
of Florida Performing Arts, and with the Albany Symphony and the Sinfonia Gulf Coast.
She holds the Lindemann Vocal Chair of Young Concert Artists. Her management is also
supported by the Barbara Forester Austin Fund for Art Song.
From 2003 to 2005, Ms. Bullock participated in the Artists-in-Training program with the
Opera Theater of St. Louis, and graduated with the prestigious Marielle Hubner Award.
She earned her Bachelor’s degree from the Eastman School of Music, and her master’s
degree at Bard College’s Graduate Vocal Arts Program, where she was the first recipient
of the Mimi Levitt Scholarship, and won Bard College’s 2010 Concerto Competition. She
is currently pursuing an Artist Diploma at The Juilliard School, working with Edith Bers.
Originally from St. Louis, Missouri, Ms. Bullock integrates her musical life with
community activism. She has organized benefit concerts for the Shropshire Music
Foundation and International Playground, two non-profits that serve war-affected
children and adolescents through music education and performance programs in
Kosovo, Northern Ireland, Uganda, and St. Louis. She also participated in the Music and
Medicine Benefit Concert for New York’s Weill Medical Center.
Renate Rohlfing, piano
Renate Rohlfing is rapidly garnering a name as one of her generation’s most versatile
and accomplished collaborative pianists. Equally active in instrumental and vocal
music, Ms. Rohlfing’s 13/14 season included recitals with soprano Julia Bullock in New
York, Washington, D.C., and Illinois, soprano Kathryn Guthrie in Pennsylvania, soprano
Sarah Wolfson in South Carolina, and performances with her piano trio, LONGLEASH,
in Ohio, San Francisco, and Graz, Austria. She recently completed a residency at the
Spoleto Festival in Charleston, S.C., performing as chamber musician, orchestral pianist,
and opera repetiteur. This is Ms. Rohlfing’s fourth residency at Ravinia; last summer,
she was featured in Britten’s Phaedra under the baton of James Conlon. Upcoming
highlights include recitals in Boston, New York, and Florida with soprano Julia Bullock,
an appearance at Carnegie Hall for Marilyn Horne’s The Song Continues Gala, as well as
trio performances at the Trøndheim Chamber Music Festival in Norway, Kentucky, and
throughout the New York area. Ms. Rohlfing is a winner of numerous honors, including
the New Orleans International Concerto Competition, the Presser Scholarship and the
Avenir Foundation Research Grant. She is an alumna of the Juilliard School and a native
of Honolulu, Hawaii.