Julia Bullock

Soprano Julia Bullock has striven to integrate vocal artistry with community activism. She pursued unusual activities as a young singer, such as curating a series of her own at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and organizing benefit concerts for organizations that aid children from war-ravaged areas. Bullock was born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1987. She has said that early influences on her singing were jazz vocalists Nina Simone and Billie Holiday. As a high school student, she attended the artist-in-training program of the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis and earned its Marielle Hubner Award. Bullock attended the Eastman School of Music as an undergraduate and went on for a Master's degree at Bard College north of New York City, studying there with the contemporary-oriented Dawn Upshaw. Bullock rounded out her education with an artist's diploma from the Juilliard School in New York. She earned major awards, including the 2012 Young Concert Artists International Auditions First Prize and in 2016, the Medal of Excellence from the Sphinx Organization, a Detroit nonprofit that has worked to promote the activities of young African American and Latino musicians. Bullock found roles in major productions of contemporary operas, including the world premiere of John Adams' Girls of the Golden West, which marked her own debut with the San Francisco Opera. In 2018, she appeared on a Nonesuch recording of John Adams' Doctor Atomic, and she made her debut at the Santa Fe Opera in that work in the role of Kitty Oppenheimer. At the Festival d'Aix en Provence and Dutch National Opera, she performed in a new production of Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress. Bullock has also performed traditional repertory, appearing in the title role of Purcell's The Indian Queen at the Perm Opera House in Russia. She also toured South America as Pamina in a new production of Mozart's Die Zauberflöte by director Peter Brook. In 2022, she returned on Nonesuch with the recital Walking in the Dark; she was accompanied by pianist Christian Reif, to whom she is married. In the 2023-2024 season, Bullock served as Featured Artist for the Philharmonia Orchestra in London, holding two residencies there during the concert year.
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