In Search of Youkali Album Review – Katie Bray is great on this trip around Weill | classical music

YOakley was, for Kurt Weill, a land of desires, promised but never fulfilled—a powerful image of the exiled and itinerant composer. The 1935 song on which he captured the idea, Tango, forms the star of Katie Brae’s journey through Will’s songwriting career, which he performed alongside pianist William Vann, accordionist Murray Grainger and double bassist Marian Schofield, the last of the Hermes experience.

First, we hear Yukali’s haunting, unaccompanied musings, and then more of these musings punctuate the program until we finally get to the full song. The journey takes in numbers in German, French and English – some familiar, some unfamiliar – including two songs written for the Huckleberry Finn musical that Will was working on at the time of his death.

Bray and Van have been developing this program together for years, and it shows in their easy fluency; The other two tools are used explicitly, drawing in subtle colors rather than primary colors. As for Bray, she is special. From the deliciously tart Barbarasong to the melancholy controlled emotion of Je ne t’aime pas, her singing is evidence of how a high, “trained” voice can sound wonderfully sustained and natural in this music.