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...

We spoke with soprano Julia Bullock about her upcoming performance in Josephine Baker: A Personal Portrait. How did this project come about? On my debut recital tour in 2014, I performed a program titled “Hommage à Josephine Baker.” Jeremy Siskind, an accomplished jazz pianist and songwriter who I met at...