LOLA, or Local Opera Local Artists, will present a free online concert featuring soprano Dr. Nicole Taylor performing songs by Black Composers. Pianist Nikki Birdsong accompanies. The concert is at 4:30 p.m. CDT on June 5 on LOLA’s YouTube Channel.
The concert portion is pre-recorded but Taylor will be live with commentary on her musical selections and a Q&A following the performance.
Taylor will perform songs composed by Florence Price, Margaret Bonds, William Grant Still, John Daniels Carter, Betty Jackson King, Undine Smith Moore, Robert Owens and H. Leslie Adams.
A native Texan, Taylor’s operatic roles include Lady Billows in Britten’s Albert Herring, the Queen of the Night and the First Lady in Mozart’s The Magic Flute, Lidoine in Poulenc’s Dialogues of the Carmelites, and Lia in Debussy’s first opera L’Enfant Prodigue. Her voice can also be heard on the recording of the newly rewritten opera by Duke Ellington called Queenie Pie.
In 2007, while she a graduate student at the University of Texas Butler School of Music, Taylor produced and performed a concert of works by African American composers. The following year, a much grander sequel became the first ever Black History Music Celebration at the Butler School, an annual event that continues today.
