Poet Claudia Rankine, who wrote the spoken texts featured in Josephine Baker: A Personal Portrait, has been awarded a 2016 MacArthur Fellowship, the so-called “genius” grant. Claudia Rankine is the author of five collections of poetry including Citizen: An American Lyric and Don’t Let Me Be Lonely; two plays including Provenance of Beauty: A South Bronx...

Editors note: This conversation with soprano Julia Bullock was conducted in the summer of 2016, prior to the September 30, 2016 Houston premiere. Edited for the Fall 2020 virtual presentaion. How did this project come about? On my debut recital tour in 2014, I performed a program titled “Hommage à...