Pianist

A dazzling collaboration of music and storytelling featuring soprano Karen Slack and new music by acclaimed composers Jasmine Barnes, Damien Geter, Jessie Montgomery, Shawn Okpebholo, Dave Ragland, BSO Deborah and Philip Edmundson Composer Chair Carlos Simon, and Joel Thompson along with carefully selected traditional repertoire. Each work reflects the beauty, humility, passion, and power of the Queens being celebrated. The Boston Symphony Orchestra on behalf of the Tanglewood Learning Institute is a project co-commissioner of African Queens.

EPSG:4326

TLI Presents: African Queens

Tanglewood Music Center

Celebrated tenor Lawrence Brownlee will present a recital in collaboration with pianist Kevin Miller as part of the Great Artists Series at WashU’s Department of Music. Lawrence Brownlee is a leading figure in opera, both as a singer and as a voice for activism and diversity in the industry. In addition to a beautifully curated program of operatic hits, his performance will include works commissioned from six of today’s leading African American composers as featured on his Grammy-nominated album “Rising.” This program speaks to the triumph of the African American community highlighting poetry of the giants of the Harlem Renaissance.

WashU's Great Artists Series

560 Music Center

Karen Slack is an operatic virtuoso who debuted the role of Billie in the 2019 world premiere of Terence Blanchard’s Fire Shut Up in My Bones, and who has amassed a body of work highlighting living composers. Simultaneously she has developed a career as sought-after curator and collaborator and now brings her new commissioning project, African Queens, to its regional debut. The evening-length vocal recital of art songs celebrates the history and legacy of seven African queens, revered as rulers but not widely heralded in the western world. The program weaves historical narrative through new works by acclaimed composers Jasmine Barnes, Damien Geter, Jessie Montgomery, Shawn Okpebholo, Dave Ragland, Carlos Simon, and Joel Thompson along with carefully selected traditional repertoire – further illuminated through passages of spoken text and thematic artwork.

Karen Slack, soprano

John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts

Opera is shaped by many voices – from the composer and librettist who create the story, to the singers who bring music to life onstage.

How do these artists’ lived experiences impact the way they approach their work, and how does your own perspective shape your experience as a member of the audience?

In 2021, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, in partnership with WashU’s Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity & Equity (CRE2 ) and Department of Music, began a multi-year exploration of race and opera through scholarly conversations; exchanges between composers, performers, researchers, and arts administrators; and performances by some of the world’s preeminent contemporary musicians. We aim to gain unique insights into the ways in which race and ethnicity have shaped the history of opera and are animating its future.

Belonging in Opera

Sally Levy Opera Center

Having first dazzled Armory" class="css-u850">Armory audiences with her participation in the Lindemann Young Artist recital in 2019, soprano Leah Hawkins has gone on to perform career-defining roles on some of the world’s leading opera stages including the Metropolitan Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Dutch National Opera, and Opéra National de Paris. She returns to the Armory recital stage to showcase her global journey with a collection of folk songs and proverbs from various cultural and religious traditions, from American and Yiddish to Jamaican, Swahili, and others. The program features works by composers and arrangers including Jasmine Barnes, Peter Ashbourne, Robert De Cormier, and a thrilling world premiere.

Recital Series

Park Avenue Armory

This brilliantly curated program featuring music by both African and American composers, strikingly represents vocal works of the past and present. Each song reflects the beauty, humility, passion and power of each Queen being celebrated. The evening centers eight new songs written for Karen by some of today’s most acclaimed composers—Jasmine Barnes, Damien Geter, Jessie Montgomery, Shawn Okpebholo, Dave Ragland, Carlos Simon, and Joel Thompson with text by Lorene Cary, Alicia Haymer, Tsitsi Ella Jaji, Deborah D.E.E.P Mouton and Creative Collaborator for the African Queens project Jay Saint Flono.

African Queens: A Recital by Karen Slack soprano and Kevin Miller piano

Aspen Meadows Resort

After starring in Cincinnati Opera’s season-opening production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni, world-renowned baritone Elliot Madore takes to Music Hall’s Wilks Studio for “A Portrait of the Artist as a Middle-Aged Man,” an autobiographical evening of song. Through stories and music, Madore will illuminate the contrast between his everyday life as a middle-aged man with his chaotic, exhilarating, and sometimes exasperating career as an international opera singer.

Studio Sessions:  Elliot Madore

Cincinnati Music Hall

It’s hard to keep eyes and ears off this accomplished and charismatic artist. “I want people to feel like they’re listening to someone who has something thoughtful and meaningful to say,” says Lawrence Brownlee, who returns to SF Performances after his 2018 debut. Brownlee is deeply thoughtful about his connection to audiences, through selection of repertory and musical storytelling.

Lawrence Brownlee Tenor and Kevin Miller Piano

War Memorial and Performing Arts Center

Among the world’s leading bel canto tenors, Lawrence Brownlee has emerged as a pivotal voice for activism and diversity in classical music. His latest recital program, Rising, is dedicated to Black composers and writers, with text drawn from the Harlem Renaissance.

Lawrence Brownlee, tenor & Kevin Miller, piano

Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts

Tenor Lawrence Brownlee, “one of the most in-demand opera singers in the world today” (NPR), returns alongside pianist Kevin Miller with a program of song based on texts by poets and authors of the Harlem Renaissance set to brand-new music that he is commissioning from acclaimed Black composers.

Lawrence Brownlee: Rising

Calderwood Studio at GBH

This year’s Marian Anderson Vocal Award winner, soprano Leah Hawkins, is praised for her “gleaming sound” (The Washington Post). The 2018 graduate from WNO’s Cafritz Young Artist program has quickly gained a reputation for her compelling performances, with significant debuts on stages such as the Metropolitan Opera, Bayerische Staatsoper, Portland Opera, Tulsa Opera, and more.

Named for the groundbreaking African American contralto, the Marian Anderson Vocal Award recognizes a young American singer in opera, oratorio, or recital repertory. Given annually by the Kennedy Center, the award offers a cash prize, a residency at Washington’s Duke Ellington School of the Arts, and a recital presented by WNO. Prior recipients include Frederick Ballentine, Will Liverman, Soloman Howard, Ryan Speedo Green, Denyce Graves, Eric Owens, Lawrence Brownlee, J’Nai Bridges, Janai Brugger, John Holiday, and many others.

Marian Anderson Vocal Award Recital: Leah Hawkins

Kennedy Center

Set 400 years into the future, Lalovavi is an Afrofuturist adventure that follows Persephone, the youngest daughter of the ruler of Atlas, the city formerly known as Atlanta. Currency and status in Atlas are determined based on the presence of Syndica, a gene that promotes vitality and longevity. When Persephone is found to possess a version of Syndica that confers immortality, she is betrayed by her family and must run for her life. She is thrust into an epic journey, uncovering a hidden past that leads her to discover love’s true meaning and the power to determine her destiny.

Pianist

Kevin Miller

Events

Upcoming events

9 - 11 Jul, 2026

Lalovavi · Cincinnati Opera

Past events

Jul 27, 2025

TLI Presents: African Queens · Tanglewood

Mar 23, 2025

WashU's Great Artists Series · Opera Theatre of Saint Louis

Future and recently performed repertoire

Conductor in Lalovavi by Day

Cincinnati Opera

About

Kevin Miller hasn't added a bio