Tona Brown

Last updated
Tona Brown
Tona Brown singing.jpg
Background information
Birth nameTona Brown
Origin Norfolk, Virginia
GenresClassical
Occupation(s)Singer-violinist
Instrument(s)Vocals, violin
Years active1994–present
Website tonabrown.com

Tona Brown is an American violinist and mezzo-soprano who performs internationally and is the first transgender woman to perform at Carnegie Hall. [1] She was the first African American transgender woman to perform for an American president.

Contents

Early life and education

Brown had challenges with her gender identity growing up and referred to herself as an "androgynous" child (Partly male and partly female in the appearance of interminate sex). She started playing violin at the age of 10, attended the Governor's School for the Arts, an art high school program for gifted and talented students. Brown was formally educated at the Shenandoah Conservatory of Music studying violin performance with minors in viola, piano, and voice.

Career

She was selected to perform in a national tour with the "Tranny Road Show", [2] a multi-media tour group of transgender artists that toured from Florida to Canada in April 2006. Brown was chosen by the White House to sing the National Anthem for former President Barack Obama at the 2014 LGBTQ Leadership Gala Dinner at the Sheraton in New York City, making her the first transgender artist to be given this honor. [3] Brown was also selected to be a performer for the 2011 Out Music Awards. [4] On June 25, 2014, Brown performed at the Weill Recital Hall of Carnegie Hall.[ citation needed ] In 2015 Brown appeared in For Which We Stand , a full-length documentary film highlighting LGBTQ and straight artists. [5] Tona Brown recorded an opera movie for Shenandoah University's 2021 production of "Suor Angelica" playing the role of La Zia Principessa. Ms. Brown will be performing in a lead transgender role as Hannah After in the opera "As One" by Laura Kaminsky with the Lowell Chamber Orchestra under the direction of Orlando Cela in the fall of 2021. Ms. Brown was also asked to do a masterclass on Transgender Voices by the Virginia National Association of Teachers of singing and teaches private lessons to students with her company Aida Studios. [6]

Influences

Brown is an advocate for transgender issues and the arts and participates in speaking engagements primarily on the east coast. She also focuses on trans issues in her online TV series, Conversations with Tona Brown. Her words of advice for transgender youth are to "not allow others to make you believe that you are not worthy of achieving what dreams you have. I cannot tell you how many people no problems had told me that I would not succeed being ‘out’ as a transgender artist." Brown is a major inspiration who has shown the world that despite barriers related to her identity, she has still achieved her wildest dreams. [7]

Discography

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Angela Brown</span> American opera singer

Angela M. Brown is an American dramatic soprano particularly admired for her portrayal of Verdi heroines.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sissieretta Jones</span> American soprano singer (1868–1933)

Matilda Sissieretta Joyner Jones was an American soprano. She sometimes was called "The Black Patti" in reference to Italian opera singer Adelina Patti. Jones' repertoire included grand opera, light opera, and popular music. Trained at the Providence Academy of Music and the New England Conservatory of Music, Jones made her New York City debut in 1888 at Steinway Hall, and four years later she performed at the White House for President Benjamin Harrison. She sang for four consecutive presidents and the British royal family, and was met with international success. Besides the United States and the West Indies, Jones toured in South America, Australia, India, southern Africa, and Europe.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Laura Jane Grace</span> American musician

Laura Jane Grace is an American musician best known as the founder, lead singer, songwriter, and guitarist of the punk rock band Against Me!. In addition to Against Me!, Grace fronts the band Laura Jane Grace & the Devouring Mothers, a solo project she started in 2016. Grace is notable for being one of the first highly visible punk rock musicians to publicly come out as transgender, which she did in May 2012. She released her debut solo studio album, Stay Alive, in 2020, followed by Hole in My Head (2024).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nina Arsenault</span> Canadian actress

Nina Arsenault is a Canadian performance artist, freelance writer, and former sex worker who works in theatre, dance, video, photography and visual art.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alexandra Billings</span> American actress (born 1962)

Alexandra Scott Billings is an American actress, singer, and teacher. Billings, a trans woman, played one of TV's first openly transgender characters in 2005 made-for-TV movie Romy and Michele: In the Beginning. She is also known for portraying the recurring character Davina in the Amazon series Transparent and has played transgender characters in ER, Eli Stone, How to Get Away with Murder, Grey's Anatomy and The Conners.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Candis Cayne</span> American actress and performance artist

Candis Cayne is an American actress and performance artist. Cayne performed in New York City nightclubs in drag since the 1990s, and came out as transgender in 1996; Cayne came to national attention in 2007 for portraying transgender mistress Carmelita on ABC's prime time drama Dirty Sexy Money. The role makes Cayne the first transgender actress to play a recurring transgender character in primetime. She is perhaps best known for her recurring role as the Fairy Queen on the fantasy series The Magicians.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scott Turner Schofield</span> American actor, writer and producer

Scott Turner Schofield is an American actor, writer, producer, and speaker. He is a transgender activist, and uses he/him and they/them pronouns. He was the first out transgender actor in Daytime television, and the first out trans man to earn an Emmy nomination for acting.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Julia Serano</span> American writer and activist

Julia Michelle Serano is an American writer, musician, spoken-word performer, transgender and bisexual activist, and biologist. She is known for her transfeminist books, such as Whipping Girl (2007), Excluded (2013), and Outspoken (2016). She is also a public speaker who has given many talks at universities and conferences. Her writing is frequently featured in queer, feminist, and popular culture magazines.

Jahmila Adderley, known professionally as Mila Jam, is an American transgender singer, songwriter, dancer, actress, and LGBTQ activist.

Grooby Productions is a company founded in London, England in 1996 and operationally based in Los Angeles, California, that produces transgender online adult entertainment. It established itself as one of the pioneer companies of online adult transgender entertainment with its website Grooby Girls, "the first transsexual pay site with original content". The company owns a number of transgender adult websites, produces its own DVD line, and has other interests in forums, blogs and social networking in the transsexual niche genre including the Transgender Erotica Awards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yuja Wang</span> Chinese pianist (born 1987)

Yuja Wang is a Chinese pianist. Born in Beijing, she began learning piano there at age six, and went on to study at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing and the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ji-Hae Park</span> Musical artist

Ji-Hae Park is a German-born Korean violinist, professor, and entrepreneur.

Transgender pornography is a genre of pornography featuring transsexual or transgender actors. The majority of the genre features trans women, but trans men are sometimes featured. Trans women are most often featured with male partners, but they are also featured with other women, both transgender and cisgender.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Transgender Erotica Awards</span> Adult entertainment award

Transgender Erotica Awards, originally known as The Tranny Awards, are a group of movie awards presented annually in the United States recognizing performances and performers in the field of transgender pornography, with an emphasis on erotic photography and pornographic movies. Organized by adult industry production company Grooby Productions, the awards were first given in 2009. Citing a poor representation of transgender performers and producers in mainstream adult awards ceremonies, the Transgender Erotica Awards were created to recognize achievement in the transgender adult industry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Christopher Lee (activist)</span> American LGBT activist

Christopher "Christoph" Lee was an American transgender activist, and award-winning filmmaker in the San Francisco Bay Area community. He was also the co-founder of Tranny Fest, now called the San Francisco Transgender Film Festival (SFTFF). In 2002 he was the first openly trans man Grand Marshal of San Francisco Pride. Lee's death and the designation of his assigned gender at birth on his death certificate rather than his self-identified gender was the impetus behind the "Respect After Death Act", AB 1577, which was passed in California on September 26, 2014.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ryka Aoki</span> American author

Ryka Aoki is an American author of novels, poetry, and essays. She teaches English at Santa Monica College and gender studies at Antioch University.

Sean Dorsey is a Canadian-American transgender and queer choreographer, dancer, writer and trans rights activist. He is widely recognized as the United States' first acclaimed transgender modern dance choreographer. Dorsey founded his San Francisco-based dance company Sean Dorsey Dance, which incorporates transgender and LGBTQ+ themes into all of their works. Dorsey is also the founder and artistic director of Fresh Meat Productions, a non-profit organization. Fresh Meat Productions creates and commissions new work, presents performing arts programs, conducts education and engagement, and advocates for justice and equity in the Arts. The organization hosts Fresh Meat Festival in San Francisco, an annual festival of transgender and queer performance.

<i>Tranny</i> (book) Autobiography of Laura Jane Grace

Tranny: Confessions of Punk Rock's Most Infamous Anarchist Sellout is an autobiography by Laura Jane Grace, co-written with Noisey editor Dan Ozzi and published by Hachette Books on November 15, 2016. Informed by extensive journal records, it covers Grace's childhood and early involvement in anarcho-punk, and her role as frontperson of Against Me! from the band's founding to her publicly coming out as a transgender woman in 2012.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tessa Lark</span> American concert violinist from Kentucky

Tessa Lark is an American concert violinist.

Diana Green is an American comics comics creator. She is known for her debut comic strip Tranny Towers and is one of the first transgender cartoonists to include openly transgender characters in her comics. Throughout her career, she has contributed to various LGBTQ publications, such as Gay Comix and "Omaha" the Cat Dancer, as well as publishing her own works.

References

  1. Frank, Priscilla (2014-05-23). "Meet the First African American Transgender Performer to Take the Stage at Carnegie Hall". Huffington Post. Retrieved 2018-05-05.
  2. Kowalska, Monika (2014-03-22). "The Heroines of My Life: Interview with Tona Brown". The Heroines of My Life. Retrieved 2022-05-12.
  3. "Tranny Roadshow 2006". 2006-04-03. Retrieved 2018-05-07.
  4. "Tona Brown, Biography". www.classicalplace.com. Retrieved 2018-05-05.
  5. "The LGBTQ Academy of Recording Arts Announces Upcoming Documentary". www.metroweekly.com. 2014-04-22. Retrieved 2018-05-07.
  6. "About". Tona Broqn. Retrieved March 9, 2022.
  7. Parkins, Cameron. "Tona Brown". Stand with Trans. Retrieved March 9, 2022.