Erica Papillion-Posey
Equally at home and versed in the classical arts singing the title role of a fully staged opera, headlining her own jazz quartet or recital series with piano, crossover vocalist, Erica Papillion-Posey is not to be missed on any stage with scheduled performances in both genres. May 2015, this mezzo soprano made her Boulder Symphony Orchestra debut as Bizet’s gypsy, vixen Carmen under the baton of Maestro Devin Patrick Hughes. While making her 2013, professional North American debut with Miami Lyric Opera in what has become her signature role she, “…. captured Carmen’s slinky sexiness, radiating allure and trouble… She had the vocal power to sing a soft, seductive “Habanera” in a hall-filling, rounded voice, lingering over the phrases as the men in the square watched. She snapped off the Spanish-style ornaments of the “Seguidilla”, and was especially compelling in the lower register, where Carmen’s sultriness comes through…” [South Florida Classical Review]. After being hailed, “… the best Carmen this city has
seen in decades” [El Nuovo Herald/Miami Herald] the Miami Lyric Opera has engaged Ms. Papillion-Posey for another performance of Carmen in their 2014-15 season. A Louisiana native with roots in the jazz idiom, Ms. Papillion-Posey is regularly engaged to return to her first musical love. She dazzled in the bayou of Louisiana as featured guest artist at the 2014 Jazz in the Arts Black Tie Dinner, an engagement she is slated to repeat December 2015. Embracing the blurred lines between the classical and jazz genres, she has developed a groundbreaking new crossover concert series. The first of which, The Salon, Reimagined Tour, will debut in 2016 and be performed throughout Europe and the United States. In 2014, she formed her own jazz ensemble, The Erica Papillion-Posey Quartet with Denver bassist, Ken Walker (Ken Walker Sextet) and fellow Louisiana natives, father/son duo, Chester and Jairus Daigle on piano and violin respectively. The Erica Papillion-Posey Quartet recently completed its debut recording: The Standard Reimagined: When Jazz…, a nostalgic, torch tribute to the era of the elegant, timeless jazz siren “…when the entire presentation mattered” as witnessed in a June 2015, Mercury Café performance. The LP is slated for a fall 2015 release.
