Oregon Music News

Photo credit: Jon Stuber

The Julians is a quartet of accomplished female singers who have offered innovative programs that feature classical, musical theater, pop, and indie genres. The Portland-based ensemble, named after the mystic and scholar Julian of Norwich (1342 – 1416), consists of Elizabeth Bacon, Maria Karlin, Vakarė Petroliūnaitė, and Kristen Buhler. The foursome have created a new show, called Truly, Madly, Deeply, which they will unveil at 2 pm on Sunday (February 12) at First Presbyterian Church (1200 SW Alder) as part of the Celebration Works Concert Series.

Because The Julians are so comfortable with such a wide range of styles, I wanted to find out more about their concert. So I talked with the group’s artistic director, Kristen Buhler. Here’s our conversation:

What is Truly, Madly, Deeply all about?

Buhler:  Truly, Madly, Deeply has a little bit of each of our personal stories in it. The arc follows a woman through a year of dating, changing with the seasons. She begins the summer hopeful, and finds love. Autumn has a lovely beginning, but then she is betrayed by him and we explore the dual perspective of both she and the “other woman” through a musical dialogue. Winter finds her working through her grief and discontent back into hope. In spring, she reunites with someone from her past to find love anew.

We explore her emotions through a variety of pieces ranging in genre from classical to musical theater to alt-pop to classic rock and even a little country. To add a visceral and visual component to the show, we’re projecting images of us from a photo-shoot shot by the multi-talented Jon Stuber reflecting the changing emotions of the woman in each season of her journey.

So the program begins with summer.

Buhler:  The concert begins with a bang featuring our take on Freddie Mercury’s song, “Somebody to Love.” Then the summer section begins with songs in which the woman is finding herself and someone new. This set includes pieces like my solo, “The Girls of Summer” by Stephen Sondheim and an innocently flirtatious Lithuanian folk song, “Ein Bernelis per Laukeli.” You’ll fall in love along with Liz Bacon during her rendition of Joni Mitchell’s “Help Me.” We will also perform songs by Ralph Vaughan Williams, Girlyman’s “This is Me,” and Vakarė Petroliūnaitė solo, “C’est l’extase langoureuse” by Claude Debussy. We close out summer with Maria Karlin’s solo, “Feeling Good” by Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse.

Then things get colder.

Buhler:  That’s right. We are thrilled to begin autumn by premiering Renée Favand-See’s gorgeous piece, “Lighting the leaves.” I was really drawn to the piece especially after learning that her husband, Corin See, wrote the poetry for it. I love the metaphor in that and how it fits in our show. Renée Favand-See and her husband Corin moved here recently from New York City. I recommend checking out her website:  www.reneefavand.com – she is so accomplished!

How did you meet her?

Buhler:  She sings in Resonance Ensemble with several of us. She attended one of our Julians concerts and offered the piece to us to premiere. We, of course, jumped at the chance to work with such a talented composer.

It looks like you’ve arranged a couple of numbers for the autumn section.

Buhler:  Yes, In general, Maria Karlin and I arrange many of our songs and we all enjoy collaborating and creating our unique stamp on them.

Some of the numbers in the beginning of this section are reflective of the season, and “Taevaste tuul” (Blow, Heavenly Wind) by Veljo Tormis signals a negative change for the woman. From there, we move into the betrayal dialogue between our woman and the woman who is her rival. “Samson” by Regina Spektor and Vakarė’s “Conversation” solo by Joni Mitchell is one of the pairings. This is followed by another pairing: “Jolene” by Dolly Parton and a Swedish pop tune by Robyn, “Call Your Girlfriend” which features Liz Bacon and Vakarė Petroliūnaitė singing while engaging in an intricate cup clapping percussion part based on the arrangement by Erato, a Swedish girl-band trio. I’m so impressed with Liz and Vakarė for learning that!

Sounds great! Then things move into winter.

Buhler:  We think of this as the ‘winter of our discontent’ section. We’ll sing “Cold,” which is a very haunting snippet from Ralph Vaughan Williams’ arrangement of the folk song “The Unquiet Grave.” We then sing “In This Heart” by Sinéad O’Connor/arr. Maria Karlin and my arrangement of “Landslide” by Stevie Nicks. Throughout the show, each of us will do a classical solo and a solo from a different genre. Some of the solos are from opera, such as my rendition of, “Must the Winter Come So Soon” from Samuel Barber’s “Vanessa” and Maria’s “Adieu, Notre Petite Table” from Jules Massenet’s “Manon.” The song “Timshel” (Marcus Mumford) depicts the woman at her lowest point, but then she starts to pick herself back up and the section ends with Sara Bareilles’s “Winter Song,” which leaves the audience with the lyric “Is love alive?”

That question gets answered in our final section beginning with the energetic “Spring” by Dominick Argento sung by Liz Bacon. This song is followed with “Ragged Wood” by Robin Pecknold of Fleet Foxes and the famous Beatles number “Here Comes the Sun.” During Vashti Bunyan’s “Train Song” with Maria Karlin on ukulele, the woman is moving to find the love from her past, and with Liz Bacon’s rendition of “Happiness” from Stephen Sondheim, she finds him and the concert ends on a high note with our full band singing Ingrid Michaelson’s “You and I.”

Are all of these songs done a cpapella?

Buhler:  We are accompanied in some of them. We are so fortunate to be joined by some fantastically talented men on this concert and we have really enjoyed working with them:  Jon Stuber, piano/organ; Jerome Monaco and Jonathan Buhler (my brother) on guitar, Chris Fotinakis on violin, and Jared Brownson (Liz’s soon to be step-son) on drums. Maria Karlin also plays ukulele on several pieces.

Sometimes we incorporate percussion instruments as well. Because of my work with the Young Musicians’ Choir at First Presbyterian Church, I’ve been introduced to many fun percussion toys, and Orff instruments including the glockenspiel, which has become my personal spirit instrument. We’ve all had so much fun experimenting with these instruments.

Each woman in The Julians brings something unique to the table. We function very much like a band with a lot of collaboration and ideas constantly being shared. I think we have a really distinctive sound and we strive to make each concert an exciting experience for the audience. I think our audience will walk away from this concert both whistling familiar tunes and inspired by some new ones. The Julians is something really special that I’m grateful and proud to be a part of.