Julia Bullock Sings “Brown Baby” on Social Media
Julia Bullock (photo: Allison Michael Orenstein)
Julia Bullock sings her own arrangement of Oscar Brown Jr.’s song “Brown Baby” in a new social media video. Also featuring her husband, conductor-pianist Christian Reif, the American vocalist’s impassioned performance serves as a reminder that, as Vanity Fair puts it, “Bullock, one of opera’s fastest-rising stars, is using her artistic platform for social activism to glorious effect.” Click here to see Bullock sing “Brown Baby.”
Bullock explains:
“We are responsible and must care for the generations that come after us. This song is about wanting for the future … the sadness and anger comes from the reality of the present. I, as so many others, am mourning the lives of those continually lost to blatant violence and brutality. I need to sing about it. I need to shout about it.”
Bullock is already a prominent voice of political engagement and social consciousness. Her recent projects include “History’s Persistent Voice,” a program combining traditional slave songs with new music by American women of color, and Perle Noire: Meditations for Joséphine, a musical portrait of Josephine Baker that the New York Times considers “one of the most important works of art yet to emerge from the era of Black Lives Matter.”
Filmed while isolating at their home in Munich, her account of Oscar Brown Jr.’s song represents Bullock’s most recent contribution to the #SongsOfComfort social media series, launched in response to the pandemic by cellist Yo-Yo Ma. Click here to see her previous performances of Carole King’s “Up on the Roof,” Connie Converse’s “One by One” and Schubert’s “Wanderers Nachtlied II.”
Click here to download high-resolution photos.
www.instagram.com/_juliabullock
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© 21C Media Group, May 2020