HARAWI on Oct 4, 2024 | UCSB Arts & Lectures

Julia Bullock, soprano
Conor Hanick, piano
Bobbi Jene Smith, dancer/choreographer
Or Schraiber, dancer/choreographer

“Julia Bullock [is] an essential soprano for our times.” – Mark Swed, Los Angeles Times

“Many in the arts these days talk a big game about interdisciplinary collaboration, but few walk the walk like AMOC.” The New York Times 

HARAWI, an American Modern Opera Company (AMOC*) production, realizes Olivier Messiaen’s deeply-affecting song cycle for voice and piano in a newly physicalized and dramatized version. Over the course of a dozen interconnected love songs – the first installment in a series of song cycles known as the composer’s Tristan trilogy – dancers Bobbi Jene Smith and Or Schraiber bring Messiaen’s romantic surrealism to life through their original choreography. All four artists – Smith and Schraiber, plus pianist Conor Hanick and soprano Julia Bullock – are contributing members of AMOC*, an adventurous, enterprising collective of artists that has been called “blindingly impressive” and “preternaturally talented” by The New York Times. By incorporating dance, this unique production of HARAWI opens up Messiaen’s song cycle, adding a new dimension and greater intensity to its portrayal of love and loss.