Alicia Olatuja is a

mezzo-soprano A mezzo-soprano (, ), or mezzo ( ), is a type of classical music, classical female singing human voice, voice whose vocal range lies between the soprano and the contralto voice types. The mezzo-soprano's vocal range usually extends from the A bel ...

and graduate of the

Manhattan School of Music The Manhattan School of Music (MSM) is a private music conservatory A music school is an educational institution specialized in the study, training, and research of music. Such an institution can also be known as a school of music, music a ...

. She has made her professional debut as

Sacagawea Sacagawea ( or ; also spelled Sakakawea or Sacajawea; May – December 20, 1812)Sacagawea
." Opera Memphis Opera Memphis is a Memphis, Tennessee non-profit arts organization chartered in 1956 by a group of Memphians interested in producing regional opera. Charter signatories included noted Memphians Philip Belz and Walter Chandler. Early productions c ...

and at

Carnegie Hall Carnegie Hall ( ) is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. It is at 881 Seventh Avenue (Manhattan), Seventh Avenue, occupying the east side of Seventh Avenue between 56th Street (Manhattan), 56th and 57th Street (Manhattan), 57t ...

, UVA, and

The Kennedy Center The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, commonly known as the Kennedy Center, is the national cultural center of the United States, located on the eastern bank of the Potomac River in Washington, D.C. Opened on September 8, ...

. She has sung with the

Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir Brooklyn is a borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelve original counties established under Englis ...

since 2007.

Early life

Born in Washington State, Olatuja moved to Oregon and then settled in

St. Louis St. Louis ( , sometimes referred to as St. Louis City, Saint Louis or STL) is an independent city in the U.S. state of Missouri. It lies near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a populatio ...

with her family when she was 5 years old. Growing up, she started developing her voice in church and found inspiration from Whitney Houston. She was supported by her grandmother, Lucille Mitchell, who was a head elder at their church, as well as her mother Valencia who had a singing voice of her own.Willis, S. (2019, February 5). Alicia Olatuja Has Faith in Her Voice. Retrieved from DownBeat: https://downbeat.com/?/news/detail/alicia-olatuja-faith-in-voice Olatuja remembers traveling across Missouri, namely to

Kansas City The Kansas City metropolitan area is a bi-state metropolitan area anchored by Kansas City, Missouri. Its 14 counties straddle the border between the U.S. states of Missouri (9 counties) and Kansas (5 counties). With and a population of more t ...

, for church music retreats. She sang her first solo in church when she was 9 years old and by the time she was in middle school, she was able to read and sing music from prolific composers including

Handel George Frideric (or Frederick) Handel ( ; baptised , ; 23 February 1685 – 14 April 1759) was a German-British Baroque composer well-known for his operas, oratorios, anthems, concerti grossi, and organ concerti. Born in Halle, Germany, H ...

and

Mozart Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791) was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period (music), Classical period. Despite his short life, his rapid pace of composition and proficiency from an early age ...

Education

Olatuja originally majored in veterinary medicine before deciding to pursue a music degree at the

University of Missouri The University of Missouri (Mizzou or MU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Columbia, Missouri, United States. It is Missouri's largest university and the flagship of the four-campus Univers ...

. She graduated with her undergraduate degree from the

School of Music A music school is an educational institution specialized in the study, training, and research of music. Such an institution can also be known as a school of music, music academy, music faculty, college of music, music department (of a larger in ...

, then pursued her masters at the Manhattan School of Music. Her studies in classical voice/opera and being on stage “instantly felt at home” for her.

Career

U.S. 2013 inauguration ceremony

On January 21, 2013, Olatuja performed a solo during “Battle Hymn of The Republic” with the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir at President Barack Obama’s second inauguration. She was given 10 days to prepare for an event that approximately one million people attended. While she couldn’t recall what she saw more than how the event made her feel, this performance helped gain Olatuja international attention.

Albums

She had released an album ''The Promise'' in the preceding January, as the Olatuja Project, with her Nigerian-born husband Michael Olatuja, himself a successful jazz bassist. Alicia sang some Nigerian lyrics, including in the

Yoruba language Yoruba (, ; Yor. ) is a Niger–Congo languages, Niger-Congo language that is spoken in West Africa, primarily in South West (Nigeria), Southwestern and Middle Belt, Central Nigeria, Benin, and parts of Togo. It is spoken by the Yoruba people. ...

. Later that year she released "In The Dark" as a single, and the next year included it in her album ''Timeless''. In 2019 she released ''Intuition: Songs from the Minds of Women''.

Other performances

Alicia performed at the

Monterey Jazz Festival The Monterey Jazz Festival is an annual music festival that takes place in Monterey, California, United States. It debuted on October 3, 1958, championed by Dave Brubeck and co-founded by jazz and popular music critic Ralph J. Gleason and jazz ...

in 2017. She tours extensively, performs vocal arranging as well as singing, and operates the on-line Vocal Breakthrough Academy, an adaptation to the disruption of the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

. She sings “Pilgrimage” on track 6 of

Dr. Lonnie Smith Lonnie Smith (July 3, 1942 – September 28, 2021), styled Dr. Lonnie Smith, was an American jazz Hammond B3 organist who was a member of the George Benson quartet in the 1960s. He recorded albums with saxophonist Lou Donaldson for Blue Note ...

's 2021 CD ''Breathe'' (Blue Note Records).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Olatuja, Alicia Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American mezzo-sopranos University of Missouri alumni University of Missouri School of Music alumni 21st-century American women