By Hannah Brueske

It turns out that singer Jessica Vosk’s personality is just as big and colorful as her voice. Add to that her zigzagging brand of comic spontaneity, and you had an evening filled with a joyous holiday spirit.

Jessica Vosk at the Berklee Performance Center. Photo: Robert Torres

Jessica Vosk’s powerful voice has successfully carried demanding roles like Wicked’s Elphaba on Broadway, so there isn’t any need for performance accoutrements. But her concert this holiday season served up more than dynamite vocals; sprinkled throughout the concert was a hilarious — and seemingly off-the-cuff — stand-up comedy routine. Centerstage, courtesy of the Celebrity Series at the Berklee Performance Center last Saturday, Vosk made good on her musical director, pianist, and frequent collaborator Mary-Mitchell Campbell’s claim that she is “the most unscripted performer I work with.”

Vosk laid the groundwork for the evening’s go-with-the-flow spirit from the start, serving up a nearly eight-minute long monologue after her first number. It began with the singer recalling her experience singing the national anthem at the Detroit Lions NFL game on Thursday, then shifted to reflections on making her holiday album Sleigh (yes, as in slay), and her feelings about Berklee — her brother is a graduate of the college. She ended with a hilarious re-enactment of her awkward audition to become a Harlette for Bette Midler.

The show was so off-script that the setlist seemed to be up for grabs. This kept the proceedings fresh, and invited audience interaction. Half an hour into the show, Vosk admitted she’d already changed the setlist — “Twice!” Mary-Mitchell confirmed it by holding two fingers up in the air.

None of Vosk’s stories were entirely random, though. The yarns usually prepared the crowd for the next number. Her Bette Midler audition story, for example, led straight into a rendition of Midler’s 1988 song “I’ve Still Got My Health.”

The Christmas-sweater wearing attendees were not only serenaded with holiday classics, but such pop hits as Julia Michaels’ “Issues” and, of course, a selection of Broadway show tunes from Dear Evan Hansen, Waitress, Fiddler on the Roof, and Wicked.

At one point, Vosk made the impromptu decision to give us a quick lecture on harmony. She taught the crowd the soprano/ alto “bum bum bum” harmonies of Ingrid Michaelson and Sara Bareilles’ “Winter Song” so that everyone could join her on the number. Another element that reinforced the show’s aura of “togetherness” — the string quartet in Vosk’s band, which also included keys, drums, electric and upright bass, and an acoustic guitar, was made up of Berklee students, who were given the special chance to perform with her for this one night.

Vosk brought out several vocal Berklee student collaborators as well. In her final number, a choir of Berklee students joined her on stage to contribute an expansive harmonic texture to “O Holy Night.” For much of the show Vosk was also joined by her best friend and fellow performer Marissa Rosen, who added satisfyingly smooth backing harmonies that grounded Vosk’s flashy riffs.

Given that there were so many music students in the audience, Vosk displayed plenty of theater-kid flair, handing out advice on how to break into show business. She recalled how, after she quit her job on Wall Street, where she worked for years after graduating from college, she struggled mightily at first to be noticed. “I went to every night club, put my name on every list to sing for every open night. Nobody would call me up,” Vosk recalled. “So I always tell students, my advice is: never stop trying. It’s absolutely possible.”

Persistence may have played a part in Vosk’s success, but it’s undoubtedly her voice that delivers the goods. With apparently no effort, though no doubt through the exercise of nuanced control, she shapes her renditions of songs for maximum emotional impact — this commitment to conveying pure passion has made her one of Broadway’s vocal giants.

And it turns out that Vosk’s personality is just as big and colorful as her voice. Add to that her zigzagging brand of comic spontaneity, and you had an evening filled with a joyous holiday spirit.

Hannah Brueske is a senior journalism student at Emerson College, with a special interest in feature stories, arts reporting, and documentary filmmaking. She is active in campus publications as a projects editor for The Berkeley Beacon, Emerson’s only independent student newspaper, and the editor-in-chief of The Independent, an arts magazine that covers independent art. She just finished directing her first documentary short about the experience of transfer students and hopes to work on more documentary films soon. After graduating next December she plans to move to New York City to continue chasing and contributing to the worlds of art and culture.