When John Vacation sings Vivaldi’s aria “Ah, ch’infelice sempre” (Ah, how sad all the time), as he did with the Academy of Historic Music in a Twelfth-century church in London, he’s singing about loneliness, a lament for misplaced love. Vacation’s efficiency brings a timeless depth of emotion to this music from virtually 400 years in the past.

When he sings the pop ballad “All By Myself,” which he did as a finalist on NBC’s The Voice, the judges – Kelly Clarkson, John Legend, Gwen Stefani and Blake Shelton – rose to their toes and collectively misplaced their minds as the group went wild. However ignore all that. Simply hearken to what Vacation is doing with this music about loneliness, this lament for misplaced love.

Each of those performances deliver the identical artistry, the identical full funding of soul and self, the identical devastating energy of genuine expression that prompts our personal feelings, our reminiscences of what it’s to be alone. A Baroque cantata or a Seventies pop hit – for John, it’s all the identical. Music is music, and it comes from his coronary heart for one goal: to assist us join with our emotions and expertise our shared humanity.

John’s voice is extraordinary. He’s a countertenor – a male voice that may sing as excessive as a lady. The historical past of music written for the countertenor voice is entwined with narratives of queerness and gender all through the centuries. As a homosexual man, John is a part of that historical past, and he additionally belongs to the histories of Black singers throughout musical genres.

He grew up singing within the Calvary Approach Missionary Baptist Church in Houston. As a member of the Fort Bend Boys Choir, he sang as a soloist with the Houston Symphony and was impressed to think about the world of opera when he had the possibility to carry out with visiting mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves. In 2017, Vacation’s profession acquired a serious enhance when he received the Kennedy Middle’s Marian Anderson Vocal Award, enfolding him within the legacy of that groundbreaking African-American icon.

However this inheritance of otherness is usually a superpower; it instills an consciousness of how onerous this world will be, and the significance of empathy and understanding for ourselves and one another. John talks brazenly about self-acceptance and self-love, doing the work to really feel sturdy and grounded within the fullness of who you might be and the place you come from. As a result of the best present you give isn’t your excessive notes, extraordinary as they’re, however your wide-open coronary heart.