Arts & Events
Julia Bullock and The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment at Zellerbach Hall
On Sunday, January 19, 2025, soprano Julia Bullock joined with London’s Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in a concert of Baroque music at Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall. This event featured Julia Bullock, who is the 2024-25 Cal Performances Artist in Residence. The Orchestra of the age of Enlightenment (was led by concertmaster Kati Debretzeni. The first half of this concert featured music by George Frideric Handel, Antonio Vivaldi, Johann Sebastian Bach, Henry Purcell, and Johann Pachelbel. Highlights were Julia Bullock singing the aria Verdi prati from Handel’s opera Alcina and a trumpet solo by Daniel Blackadder in Purcell’s Trumpet Sonata in D Major.
After intermission, we heard J.S. Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G Major with a cadenza improvised by violinist Kati Debretzeni. Next came a song by Barbara Strozzi (1619-1677) entitled Che si può fare? This song was ably accompanied by archlutist Sergio Bircheli. After a work of Water Music by Georg Philipp Tellemann featurting two flutes, we heard Jean-Baptiste Lully’s Marche pour la cérémonie des Turcs from Le Bourgeois gentilhomme. Percussionist Adrian Bending introduced this work by recounting that Jean-Baptiste Lully often led his orchestra by wielding a staff with which he pounded out the beat. Notoriously, Lully once smashed his staff onto his own foot, causing an infection and gangrene that led to his death in 1687 at age 50. Next we heard the song “If Love’s a Sweet Passion” by Henry Purcell, beautifully sung by Julia Bullock. Following this we heard Jean-Philippe Rameau’s Les Sauvages from Les Indes galantes, which was led by percussionist Adrian Bending using the same staff he had previously used in Lully’s piece. The final work on the printed program was Handel’s aria “Let the Bright Seraphim” from Samson, exquisitely sung by Julia Bullock.
On this, their first US tour, The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment proved a hardy, energetic ensemble ably led by concertmaster Kati Debretzeni, whose violin technique is excellent and who acts as a kind of spark plug for her fellow musicians. Finally, soprano Julia Bullock was outstanding as always. She is well-deserving of being the current Artist in Residence at Cal Performances
