Julia Bullock’s winter/spring 2026: León premiere on tour with Seth Parker Woods and Conor Hanick; Perle Noire and El Niño at Adelaide Festival; Cincinnati May Festival directorship; and more
“Julia Bullock [is] an essential soprano for our times.” – Mark Swed, Los Angeles Times
(January 2026) — On the heels of her December premiere of Matthew Aucoin’s Songs of the Reappeared with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Grammy-winning American classical singer Julia Bullock switches into chamber music mode this month to tour the U.S. from Los Angeles to New York as part of an all-star trio with cellist Seth Parker Woods and pianist Conor Hanick, with their program featuring the premiere of a new work by Pulitzer Prize winner Tania León. Also featured is music of George Gershwin, André and Dory Previn, Ravel, Richard Rodgers, Nina Simone, George Walker, Robert Owens, Salvatore Sciarrino, and others (Jan 15–28). With Hanick, Bullock then continues on to Houston’s DACAMERA chamber music series for a performance of Harawi, Olivier Messiaen’s twelve-part, hour-long song cycle inspired by original Harawi music and Quechua poetry from a diverse range of Andean cultures (Jan 30). At Australia’s Adelaide Festival Bullock reprises two works that have become staples of her repertoire: Perle Noire: Meditations for Joséphine, inspired by the life and art of Joséphine Baker, with music by Tyshawn Sorey (March 1–4); and John Adams’s oratorio El Niño: Nativity Reconsidered, conducted by Bullock’s husband Christian Reif in his own chamber arrangement (March 12). Between these engagements, Bullock and Reif perform with New Zealand’s Auckland Philharmonia at the Auckland Arts Festival (March 7), continuing a series of performances for Bullock this season of orchestrated songs by Margaret Bonds, George Gershwin, and Leonard Bernstein, as well as songs made famous by Joséphine Baker. Later in the spring she joins Reif again for a performance with the Gävle Symphony Orchestra, where he serves as Chief Conductor, of Poulenc’s one-act monodrama La voix humaine (May 8). To close out her spring season, Bullock takes on a curatorial role as the Festival Director of Cincinnati’s May Festival, for which she is also a featured soloist in opening and closing programs (May 15–23).
U.S. tour and Australia/New Zealand engagements
When Bullock sang Matthew Aucoin’s Songs of the Reappeared with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra last month, Chicago Classical Review found that she “gave the work stellar advocacy, tackling the punishingly high tessitura with facility and bringing emotional ardency to the Spanish texts.” Aucoin and Bullock are both founding core members of the American Modern Opera Company (AMOC*), another member of which is “dazzlingly inventive” (Gramophone) pianist Conor Hanick, with whom Bullock soon embarks on a U.S. tour that also features 2022 Chamber Music America Michael Jaffee Visionary Award-winning cellist Seth Parker Woods. Their program, titled “From Ordinary Things,” features a world premiere by Pulitzer Prize winner Tania León, along with songs by George Gershwin, Robert Owens, André and Dory Previn, Ravel, Richard Rodgers, Salvatore Sciarrino, and Nina Simone; as well as George Walker’s Cello Concerto. Anchored by a performance at New York’s 92NY, a co-commissioner of the León premiere, the tour also stops at UCLA, the University of Chicago, Eastman School of Music, and Virginia Tech (Jan 15–28). Following the tour, Bullock and Hanick perform Messiaen’s hour-long song cycle Harawi – a work they have also performed in a staged version with dancers from AMOC* – at Houston’s DACAMERA chamber music series (Jan 30).
AMOC* has been credited with “revitalizing what American music theater can mean with several of our most revolutionary young talents” (Los Angeles Times); at Australia’s Adelaide Festival, Bullock and Reif perform a chamber arrangement that Reif made for AMOC* of John Adams’s Christmas oratorio, El Niño: Nativity Reconsidered. The work celebrates Latin American poets and the voices of women, and in Bullock’s words “ruminates on the notion that with the promise of new life, there is the equal threat of inexplicable violence and sacrifice” (March 12). Storied opera director Peter Sellars collaborated with Adams on the libretto for El Niño and likewise collaborated with Bullock and composer Tyshawn Sorey to develop another work she performs at the Adelaide Festival, Perle Noire: Meditations for Joséphine, inspired by the life and art of Joséphine Baker; Zachary Woolfe, writing in The New York Times, called Perle Noire “… a masterpiece. … This is a ritual of mourning, not a gay-Paree nostalgia trip, and it is one of the most important works of art yet to emerge from the era of Black Lives Matter” (March 1–4). During their stay in Australia, Bullock and Reif also collaborate with New Zealand’s Auckland Philharmonia at the Auckland Arts Festival for a program that continues a series of performances for Bullock this season – following fall performances with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin and the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra – of orchestrated songs by Margaret Bonds, George Gershwin, and Leonard Bernstein, as well as songs made famous by Joséphine Baker (March 7).
Cincinnati May Festival directorship
The New York Times hinted at the many facets of Bullock’s artistic personality when it called her “one of the singular artists of her generation – a singer of enveloping tone, startlingly mature presence and unusually sophisticated insight into culture, society and history.” Likewise, Musical America honored her as a 2021 Artist of the Year and “agent of change,” recognizing that in addition to her onstage accomplishments she is a prominent voice of social consciousness and activism. These qualities, added to her many strictly musical virtues, have led Bullock into a host of extended curatorial partnerships, to which next spring she adds the directorship of the 2026 Cincinnati May Festival, the oldest choral music festival in the Western Hemisphere (May 15–23).
The 2026 May Festival combines works from the festival’s history with works never performed by the May Festival Chorus before, as well as new visual elements and collaborations with local performing arts groups like the Cincinnati Ballet and the Classical Roots Community Choir. This year’s festival will also feature the most works by Black Americans and the largest overall diversity of composers in the event’s history. Program highlights include selections from The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess crafted by Bullock, which she performs as a soloist along with Alfred Walker; selections from Carlos Simon’s Good News Mass featuring organ improvisations from Simon himself, as part of an “Eclectic Mass” assemblage that also includes parts of Margaret Bonds’s Credo and music of Palestrina and Bach; a dialogue in song juxtaposing Alexander von Zemlinsky’s settings of Harlem Renaissance poets with songs by Margaret Bonds; Duke Ellington’s The River, which uses water as an allegory for life and spiritualty, paired with Vaughan Williams’s Sea Symphony; the rarely-performed chorus-ballets Les noces (“The Wedding”) by Igor Stravinsky and Catulli Carmina (“Songs of Catullus”) by Carl Orff, both with the Cincinnati Ballet; Bullock’s recital titled “A Dream Deferred: Langston Hughes in Song”; Rossini’s Petite Messe Solennelle sung by the Vocal Arts Ensemble; and much more. Conductors for the festival include Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra Music Director Cristian Măcelaru, May Festival Chorus conductor Matthew Swanson, and guest conductor Anthony Parnther.
Julia Bullock: winter/spring 2026 engagements
Jan 15–28
Tour with Seth Parker Woods and Conor Hanick
Seth Parker Woods, cello
Conor Hanick, piano
SIMONE: “Images”
RAVEL: “Nahandove” from Chansons madécasses
Tania LEÓN: “Oh Yemanja” (Mother’s Prayer) from Scourge of Hyacinths
Tania LEÓN: New Work (world premiere; 92NY co-commission)
WALKER: Sonata for Cello and Piano
OWENS: Drei Lieder, Op. 19
Salvatore SCIARRINO: “Ultime Rose” from Vanitas
SIMONE (arr. Siskind): “Four Women”
ANDRÉ & DORY PREVIN (transc. Siskind): “It’s Good to Have You Near Again”
GERSHWIN (arr. Previn; transc. Siskind): “Love Walked In” from The Goldwyn Follies
A. PREVIN: “Shelter” from Four Songs for Soprano, Cello, and Piano
RODGERS (arr. Previn; transc. Siskind): “Nobody’s Heart” from By Jupiter
Jan 15: Los Angeles, CA (UCLA)
Jan 18: Chicago, IL (University of Chicago)
Jan 23: New York, NY (92NY)
Jan 25: Rochester, NY (Eastman School of Music)
Jan 28: Blacksburg, VA (Virginia Tech)
Jan 30
Houston, TX
DACAMERA Series
Conor Hanick, piano
MESSIAEN: Harawi
March 1, 3, 4
Adelaide, Australia
Adelaide Festival
Tyshawn SOREY: Perle Noire: Meditations for Joséphine
March 7
Auckland, New Zealand
Auckland Philharmonia
Christian Reif, conductor
GERSHWIN: “Somebody from Somewhere” from Delicious (arr. Nelson Riddle)
BONDS: “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” (poetry by Langston Hughes; orch. Jannina Norpoth)
GERSHWIN: “Summertime” from Porgy & Bess
BONDS: “Poème d’Automne” (poetry by Langston Hughes; orch. Jannina Norpoth)
BONDS: “Winter Moon” (poetry by Langston Hughes; orch. Jannina Norpoth)
GERSHWIN: “Soon” from Strike Up the Band (arr. Nelson Riddle)
March 12
Adelaide, Australia
Adelaide Festival
Christian Reif, conductor
John ADAMS: El Niño: Nativity Reconsidered
May 8
Gävle, Sweden
Gävle Symphony Orchestra
Christian Reif, conductor
POULENC: La voix humaine
May 15-23
Cincinnati, OH
Cincinnati May Festival
Festival Directorship
May 15
“AN ECLECTIC OPENING NIGHT”
Cristian Măcelaru, conductor
Julia Bullock, soprano
Carlos Simon, Hammond Organ
Jason Alexander Holmes, baritone/Preacher
May Festival Chorus, Matthew Swanson, director
Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra
BRUCKNER: Psalm 150
ZEMLINSKY: Selections from Symphonische Gesänge
“Lied aus Dixieland” (“Song from Dixieland”)
”Totes braunes Mädel (“To a Brown Girl Dead,” text by Countee Cullen)
“Übler Bursche” (“Bad Boy”)
“Erkenntnis” (“Disillusion”)
“Afrikanischer Tanz” (“African Dance”)
BONDS:
“To a Brown Girl Dead”
“Negro Speak of Rivers”
“Poème d’Automne” and “Winter Moon” from Songs of the Season
“April Rain”
ECLECTIC MASS: Selections from:
SIMON: Good News Mass and Sanctus
PALESTRINA: Missa Assumpta est Maria
BACH: Cantata No. 191
BONDS: Credo
HANDEL (arr. Mounsey): “Soulful Hallelujah”
May 16
“THE WATER’S JOURNEY”
Cristian Măcelaru, conductor
May Festival Chorus, Matthew Swanson, director
Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra
ELLINGTON: The River
VAUGHAN WILLIAMS: Symphony No. 1, A Sea Symphony
May 17
“A DREAM DEFERRED: LANGSTON HUGHES IN SONG”
Julia Bullock, soprano
May 21
“ON LOVE AND LUST”
Matthew Swanson, conductor
Victoria Okafor, soprano
Sara Couden, contralto
Nicholas Phan, tenor
Yannis François, bass-baritone
May Festival Chorus, Matthew Swanson, director
Members of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra
Cincinnati Ballet – CB2 (Yoshihisa Arai, choreographer)
STRAVINSKY: Les noces (“The Wedding”)
ORFF: Catulli Carmina (“Songs of Catullus”)
May 23
“FESTIVAL FINALE: Porgy and Bess”
Anthony Parnther, conductor
Julia Bullock, soprano
Alfred Walker, bass-baritone
May Festival Chorus, Matthew Swanson, director
May Festival Youth Chorus, Jason Alexander Holmes, director
Classical Roots Community Choir, Jason Alexander Holmes, resident conductor
Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra
G. GERSHWIN, DUBOSE & DOROTHY HEYWARD, IRA GERSHWIN: Selections from
The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess
STILL: Plain-Chant for America
Stephen PAULUS: From Prayers & Remembrances
V. In Beauty It Walks
VI. Eternity
BERNSTEIN: “Make our Garden Grow” from Candide
HANDEL: “Hallelujah Chorus” from Messiah