Classical singer Julia Bullock and pianist/conductor Christian Reif stopped by the NPR offices in Washington, DC, to perform a Tiny Desk Concert for the NPR and NPR Music staff. "These songs refract love in various tints, and further illustrate why Bullock is one of today's most discerning and expressive singers," says NPR's Tom Huizenga. "If you want to know how to program and deliver a vocal recital, this is your masterclass." As on her 2022 debut solo album, Walking in the Dark, which won the Grammy Award for Best Classical Solo Vocal Album, the set features a wide range of music, in this case everything from a 17th-century lament by Barbara Strozzi to two songs by Connie Converse, whose work she sings on the album as well. You can watch it here:

On Walking in the Dark, Bullock and London’s Philharmonia Orchestra, conducted by Reif, perform Samuel Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915 and a song from John Adams’s El Niño. She is joined by Reif, on piano, for a traditional spiritual and songs by Oscar Brown, Jr., Billy Taylor, Sandy Denny, and Connie Converse. Bullock is “one of the singular artists of her generation,” says the New York Times, “a singer of enveloping tone, startlingly mature presence and unusually sophisticated insight into culture, society and history.” You can hear the album and get it here.

Julia Bullock reunites with Adams and returns to the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, where she performed in El Niño last season, to star in his opera Antony and Cleopatra, May 12–June 7; you can find details and tickets here. Bullock can also be heard on the 2023 first recording of Adams's  opera Girls of the Golden West here.