Tenor Lawrence Brownlee Selects

About the Playlist

June 11, 2020

June 11, 2020

Together, we have spent the past several months of these extraordinary times engaged in collectively listening deeply and thereby reconnecting with the world around us. These past couple of weeks of important protests have made the urgency of that intention all the more clear. Tenor Lawrence Brownlee is an artist who has, of course, confronted these issues for a long time in a deeply personal and meaningful way, perhaps most poignantly in a program of Spiritual Sketches that he brought to our stage in 2018. This week, we invite you to listen to his profoundly moving recording of this program, recorded with pianist and arranger Damien Sneed. And to cap off this listening experience, Lawrence has also shared a handful of selections that have brought him comfort in these weeks. He sends us James Taylor to reassure us that You’ve Got a Friend; the rawness, commitment, and intensity of Concha Buika who with Mi Niña Lola “feels as if she is trying to calm unrest”; Luciano Pavarotti—one of his favorite voices—singing of longing for the return of the birds in Rondine al Nido; and a call to Lay Your Troubles Down, performed by Commissioned.