Most of NPR's Tiny Desk Concerts feature relatively obscure indie, folk, rock, or jazz performers. This program is not Rossini (Lawrence Brownlee's specialty), but it's probably the first appearance of an opera singer in this series. Mr. Brownlee sings three spirituals in this little concert.
Here's a bit of the blurb from the NPR website:
...there's a special place in Brownlee's heart for African-American spirituals. Growing up in Youngstown, Ohio, Brownlee sang gospel music in church, and now he's returning to that tradition by releasing a new album, Spiritual Sketches — and singing selections from it here in the NPR Music offices.
Brownlee bases much of his operatic success on his sturdy church-music grounding. "I would say that the flexibility I have with my voice is in large part because I sang gospel in church," Brownlee told NPR in 2007. "It's a lot of improvisational singing with a lot of riffs or runs."
