Transgender Vocalist, Violinist Tona Brown Sings Anthem For Obama
By Nathan James
Sr. Correspondent
GBMNews
http://gbmnews.com/wp/?p=11170Brown, who sang the national anthem last Thursday at President Obama's LGBT Gala in New York City, discovered her passion for a life in the arts in her teen years at the Governors High School For The Arts, an academy for talented youth.
After graduation, Brown studied the violin under string icon Isaac Stern, at the Shenandoah Conservatory. While there, she also took voice lessons, but as this was before she transitioned to a female, her professors "tried to make [me] a tenor," Brown recalls. She later met a "vocal specialist who encouraged me to sing soprano," says Brown, "and I prepared for my career".