Debut CD Release Recital

CD Release Recital:  Lifescapes:  One Woman's Journey

Saturday, October 24 at 2 pm

Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church

10 Deerfield Road  | Deerfield, IL

MIC voice faculty Rae-Myra Hilliard offers a recital in celebration of the release of her first CD, Lifescapes: One Woman's Journey.  All of the songs/cycles/arias were composed by Black-American composers. Hilliard is a lyric soprano with degrees from Oberlin College, the State University College of New York and the University of Northern Iowa.  She has sung professionally with the Greater Buffalo Opera Company, Buffalo Opera Unlimited and currently actively performs in the Chicago area as a recitalist, soloist and professional chorister.

Hilliard debuted with the Civic Chamber Orchestra under the direction of Maestro Duain Wolf in March 2001 as a soloist in Ralph Vaughn Williams’ Serenade to Music at the South Shore Cultural Center.  In May 2002, Ms. Hilliard sang for the late Maestro Mstislav Rostropovich as the soprano cover for Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem with the Chicago Symphony Chorus.  Ms. Hilliard’s operatic credits include the roles of the Countess in Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro, Serena in Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, Donna Elvira in Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Miss Pinkerton in Menotti’s The Old Maid and the Thief, and performed in the world premiere of Wendell Logan and Paul Carter Harrison’s Doxology with the New Black Music Repertory Ensemble under the direction of the late Maestro Coleridge Taylor-Perkinson.  Her concert repertoire includes Mozart’s Regina Coeli and Requiem, Handel’s Messiah and Judas Maccabaeus, Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass, Bach’s Magnificat in D, Vivaldi’s Gloria, Britten’s War Requiem, Saint-Saëns Christmas Oratorio, Vaughan Williams Serenade to Music and Rossini’s Stabat Mater, and David Fanshawe’s African Sanctus.

Hilliard’s solo recitals have been presented at Fourth Presbyterian Church, Harold Washington College, Sherwood Conservatory, Greater Union Baptist Church, Wrigleyville Worship Center, Humboldt Parkway Baptist Church (Buffalo, NY), Calvary Baptist Church (Buffalo, NY), University of South Dakota (Vermilion), The Tapestry Center, St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church (Evanston) and Zion Lutheran Church (Deerfield).

Since 1998, Ms. Hilliard has worked diligently at promoting classical music written by and/or for people of color.  From 2000-2010, she successfully coordinated and performed on an annual Black History recital that was sponsored and underwritten by the Austin Corinthian Baptist Church. In February 2007, Rae-Myra was the featured artist for the Great Lakes Baptist District Association Women’s Auxiliary.  In addition to the solo recital, Rae-Myra was interviewed by Lorna Hill at WNED public radio as apart of her series on “Uncrowned Queens”.  This series recognizes and celebrates the accomplishments of Black American women in and/or from the Western New York area.

Hilliard is a member of American Guild of Musical Artists (AGMA), the Chicago Music Association (CMA), the No.1 Chicago Branch of the National Association of Negro Musicians, R. Nathaniel Dett Club and NASPAAM (National Association of the Study and Performance of African-American Music).