Musical Bio :
I started playing piano at the age of 4. When I sat on the piano bench, my feet didn't touch the ground, so I stood. I was laughed at during my first piano recital. It's been a love affair since. At the age of ten, I began studying musicianship,composition, trumpet, and piano at Peabody, and spent summers at the Walden School for Young Composers. Durinig this time, I won several composition awards as a young composers, and then attended the Oberlin Conservatory. I was very dissatisfied by the blatantly misogynist tenor in the composition program, so I studied world religion, and ethnomusicology instead, with some attention paid to fine arts as well.
Other influences, besides calssical, cam from my mother's side of the family, with a long tradition in traditional barber shop quartets, jazz and blues. My gandfather, a publisher,music teacher, pianist, choral director, and banjo player, was a huge influence on me in terms of the more popular styles of music to which my songs still nod. My mother was a classical oboist, oboe teacher, choir director, and also played folk guitar. I sat through many a production of Sweeney Todd, God Spell, and other great musicals at the Lyric and Mechanic theaters in Baltimore. She sang spirituals and resistance songs during the 60s, so the social issues of that turbulent time are a running theme throughout both my music, and my life.
As an off-shoot of my deep desire to further others' success, both in business and the arts, I'm currently on the board of the Baltimore Songwriter's Association. This organization was the platform from which I migrated from classical composition to my current amalgamation of pop-jazz-soul-indie-folk. My intention, when I write a song, it to express myself, and I hope that it somehow touches the listener. I infuse classical, blues, jazz, and folk for a sound that has touches of Indie artists such as Tori Amos, and jazz composers, like Melody Gardot.
I've produced two full-lenght CDs to date; Threads, a solo CD, and Bar Tunes, a Blues and Soul collection, I am ready to launch a third CD, comprised of my more delicate, and deeply emotional works.
You can hear Teporah me play live at Baltimore locations, as well as in D.C., Frederick, and West VA. I play a combination of covers, such as Norah Jones, Bill Withers, and others, as well as originals suited for each venue.
