PATRICE MICHAELS
COMPOSER/SOPRANO
Composer - soprano Patrice Michaels creates lyrical soundscapes with a curious ear and an exceptional artistic range that allows her to make captivating music – sometimes out of even the most unexpected source material. A passion for both performance and composing sets Michaels apart.
The breadth of Michaels’ talents are fully expressed in her latest project, Notorious RBG in Song, a salute to Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (Cedille Records) with pianist Kuang-Hao Huang. Michaels channels her talents as composer and singer on the album, distilling the Justice’s legal opinions, letters, and lectures with deft sensitivity, creating “an engrossing, episodic portrait of the legal thinker, wife, mother and feminist icon” (WQXR). The prismatic album of world premieres has earned praise as “a remarkable tribute” (AllMusic) delivered in “an attractive, post-modern tonal idiom” (Classics Today). The project has been so well received that it will premiere as a concert with chamber orchestra, narrative, and multi-media elements with upcoming performances at the Skirball Center (Los Angeles) and in Washington, DC, produced by The Constitution Center of Philadelphia.
What she’s working on:
Jane Crow:
An Operatic Exploration Of The Life & Times Of Pauli Murray
Pauli Murray was a defining American voice of the 20th century who addressed racism and sexism directly through legal scholarship, poetic expression, social justice action and religious practice. Murray helped integrate lunch counters in Washington, DC, was a founding member of the National Organization of Women (NOW), taught law in the new republic of Ghana and at Brandeis University, was the first Black person to earn a JSD from Yale Law School and the first female-identifying Black individual to be ordained as an Episcopal priest, among many other accomplishments and attributes.