Dr. Bianca Jackson, music educator and classically trained soprano, is an Associate Professor of Music and Voice Coordinator at Alcorn State University, where she teaches applied voice, lyric diction, vocal pedagogy, song literature, aural skills, and African American music. Previous appointments included several years at Norfolk State University. She maintains a dynamic vocal music studio, performing classical and contemporary music. Her students have graduated to become music educators, performers, and entrepreneurs. Bianca possesses over twenty years’ experience in classical, sacred, and contemporary genres and has performed across the U.S. and in Italy. She is an active performer in community programs, coordinating events featuring Black composers with the City of Portsmouth Museums at Emanuel AME Church and the Chrysler Museum of Art. She performed the music of Black women composers as a featured soloist and guest lecturer in multiple concerts with the Virginia Chorale and Virginia Opera. Performance ensembles have included the Virginia Opera Chorus, and soloist with the Norfolk State University Theatre Company. Her debut recital in Hampton Roads (Virginia) was with the Chesapeake Civic Chorus. With over 10 years teaching experience, she is also a proud former music education teacher at the Mississippi Public School system.
As a current Virginia Humanities HBCU Scholars Fellow, Bianca has a lifelong investment to express Black creativity, performing folk, operatic, classical, and contemporary vocal music, and teaching music. Her research has sought to highlight the Black voice in classical music, notably her lecture recital: Little Black Slave Child: Musical Expressions of Black Cultural Trauma. Bianca presented a lecture recital at the 2020 National Opera Association’s Southeastern Regional Conference on cultural trauma in selected operas by William Grant Still, the Dean of African American composers. She was presenter and panelist on the history and impact of spirituals at the 2021 Virginia Chapter and Mid-Atlantic Regional Conferences for the National Association of Teachers of Singing. During the pandemic, she has been an active performer in virtual performances with musicians across the U.S. and world. Bianca created an annual virtual Black History VOICE Recital to showcase students and faculty performances. Bianca currently serves as vice-president of an HBCU Opera & Musical Theatre Collective, collaborating to diversify the field. Previous appointments include Scholarship Chair and Co-Advisor of the student chapter of the Tidewater Area Musicians Branch of the National Association of Negro Musicians, Inc., adjudicator of independent film festivals, youth music competitions, and HBCU pageants. Bianca has been featured as a soloist on several recordings. As a singer-songwriter and poet, Bianca has composed music for stage plays and Black historical events. During the pandemic, Bianca reached a turning point in her life and is actively seeking to share her personal struggle by creating artistic works to share her experience with uterine fibroids, a condition disproportionally affecting Black women. In response, she founded a non-profit, The WOMB Project.
Honors include a Mississippi Arts Commission Fellowship, encouragement award for the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, and finalist in New York City’s Career Bridges Competition. She is an alumna of the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship and the Institute for the Recruitment of Teachers. Bianca earned a Doctor of Musical Arts in Vocal Performance from The University of Texas at Austin, with certification in African and African American Studies. Other degrees include a Master of Music in Vocal Performance from the University of Louisiana at Monroe and dual Music Performance and Music Education degrees from Tougaloo College, where she was a Presidential Scholar.
As a current Virginia Humanities HBCU Scholars Fellow, Bianca has a lifelong investment to express Black creativity, performing folk, operatic, classical, and contemporary vocal music, and teaching music. Her research has sought to highlight the Black voice in classical music, notably her lecture recital: Little Black Slave Child: Musical Expressions of Black Cultural Trauma. Bianca presented a lecture recital at the 2020 National Opera Association’s Southeastern Regional Conference on cultural trauma in selected operas by William Grant Still, the Dean of African American composers. She was presenter and panelist on the history and impact of spirituals at the 2021 Virginia Chapter and Mid-Atlantic Regional Conferences for the National Association of Teachers of Singing. During the pandemic, she has been an active performer in virtual performances with musicians across the U.S. and world. Bianca created an annual virtual Black History VOICE Recital to showcase students and faculty performances. Bianca currently serves as vice-president of an HBCU Opera & Musical Theatre Collective, collaborating to diversify the field. Previous appointments include Scholarship Chair and Co-Advisor of the student chapter of the Tidewater Area Musicians Branch of the National Association of Negro Musicians, Inc., adjudicator of independent film festivals, youth music competitions, and HBCU pageants. Bianca has been featured as a soloist on several recordings. As a singer-songwriter and poet, Bianca has composed music for stage plays and Black historical events. During the pandemic, Bianca reached a turning point in her life and is actively seeking to share her personal struggle by creating artistic works to share her experience with uterine fibroids, a condition disproportionally affecting Black women. In response, she founded a non-profit, The WOMB Project.
Honors include a Mississippi Arts Commission Fellowship, encouragement award for the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, and finalist in New York City’s Career Bridges Competition. She is an alumna of the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship and the Institute for the Recruitment of Teachers. Bianca earned a Doctor of Musical Arts in Vocal Performance from The University of Texas at Austin, with certification in African and African American Studies. Other degrees include a Master of Music in Vocal Performance from the University of Louisiana at Monroe and dual Music Performance and Music Education degrees from Tougaloo College, where she was a Presidential Scholar.