Singer Marlissa Hudson has made quite the name for herself around town as one of the city’s budding soprano singers. She has performed with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, Union Avenue Opera and the St. Louis Civic Orchestra.
But Friday Hudson lets loose in a new way.
She’s headlining a jazzy, funky monthly event called the Lost Sessions, which features often undiscovered St. Louis artists in intimate settings.
Opera singer mixes it up in her new funky show
The classically trained Hudson, schooled at the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University, is known in classical circles, but she’ll face a new audience with the Lost Sessions.
Listening to Hudson talk about her participation in the event, it’s clear she’ll do just fine. Sure, she’s most comfortable in an orchestra setting, but she’s also known to pull up at a symphony event with Ludacris blasting from her car stereo.
“I’ve been exposed to everything. It’s about energy to me,” says Hudson, who doesn’t always listen to opera in her spare time. “Sometimes opera gives me a headache. It’s like taking your work home.”
Hudson, who started out singing in church and in grade school at John Burroughs School, says she has performed the national anthem “a la Whitney Houston, not opera diva style.”
She was told early on by teachers that she had an operatic voice, though she simply wanted to be Aretha Franklin or Oleta Adams. Finally, she realized her teacher was right, and she decided to take the opera path.
Her Lost Sessions set will be jazz, blues and more. “I tend to do a lot of boldness and experimenting and ad libbing in my singing, the same things that are involved with jazz,” she says. “The most insane thing we’re going to do is take an opera aria and then go back and flip it with a beat. It’ll have a swing to it.”
Some of the more popular tunes she’ll do include “My Favorite Things” and “Summertime.” She’s really been wanting to do “Summertime” Fantasia-style ever since she saw the singer perform it on “American Idol” years ago. “Ever since then I’ve wanted to funk it up. I’ve done it symphony style,” she says.
Most daunting of this experience, she says, was allowing herself to deviate from what was on the page.
“In opera there’s not as much space to play,” she says. “This time, I have to feel free to let that go and be artistic,” she says.
Hudson says the musicians weren’t intimidated by her coming from the opera world, or her status as a lyric coloratura soprano, “the highest of the sopranos, the daredevil of the soprano world.”
“Everybody is supportive and professional, and there was a warm rapport from the beginning,” she says. “They weren’t fazed by me. These guys aren’t random musicians. They were extremely articulate and on point. It was more like ‘who are you? You’re in our world.’ ”
➜ Lamar Harris presents the Lost Sessions featuring Marlissa Hudson (soprano) • 8 p.m. Friday• Cafe Cioccolato, 816 Olive Street • $10 • 314-246-9284 • marlissahudson.com • lamarharris.org
