Critical Acclaim

​METROPOLITAN MUSEUM ART
The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium (New York, NY)

JULIA BULLOCK IS ‘HISTORY’S PERSISTENT VOICE’ AT THE MET MUSEUM
Clive Pagent, Musical America

The Met Museum may have hit a homerun appointing Julia Bullock as its 2018-19 Artist in Residence…An avowed community activist, wrestling with how art transforms daily lives, is food and drink to Bullock. Her first Met concert on September 15 took a multi-generational approach, using America’s past and present to marry music with the visual arts. By fusing the traditional slave song with the work of Black artists from the American South, and commissioning new works from four contemporary composers, she projected 19th-century music and 20th-century art into the 21st century and beyond. And to compelling effect.

PAINFUL, PERSISTENT ECHOES OF SLAVERY RESOUND IN SONGS
Susan Brodie, Classical Voice America

The lyrics and readings offered an unstinting look at the hardships faced by so many African Americans today, conditions that are tantamount to contemporary slavery: labor exploitation, domestic insecurity, and incarceration. Bullock conveyed tenderness, anger, yearning, grief, and hope with open-hearted fervor and a pliant, bewitching…The 50-minute program, offered without no intermission, felt like a cabaret set thanks to atmospheric lighting, art slides, and spoken text… the soprano’s compelling charisma, musicality, and expressivity conveyed the power of her message.