My First Opera: Denyce Graves

On my first day of kindergarten, I remember hiding behind my mother’s skirt and crying because I didn’t want to go to school. Then the music teacher, Judith Grove (her name is now Judith Allen), started playing the piano and singing. After that, I loved going to school because I loved being in her class. She was the one who told me about the All-City Chorus, where all the kids from the D.C. metropolitan area would come together and make a big chorus and give performances at Constitution Hall and the Kennedy Center. She would pick me up on Saturdays from my apartment and take me to those rehearsals.    

When it was time to go to high school, she was the one who told me, “There’s a performing arts high school called the Duke Ellington School. You’ve got a pretty voice, and I think you should audition.” She got the application and we filled it out together. I got in, and I’m so glad because it was a magical place for me. I was one of these kids who was very much bullied in school and in the neighborhood where I grew up, but when I was at school, I felt like I could exhale. That was the place where I found my group of people.