About Me
Formal Bio:
Born and raised in the Midwest, Holmes earned a Bachelor of Music degree in jazz studies and voice from Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Michigan in 2000. During her undergraduate degree, she studied privately with voice teacers Professor Diana Spradling and recording artist and Professor Sunny Wilkinson. Holmes received a full-tuition Medallion Scholarship to attend WMU and graduated magna cum laude.
In 2001, Holmes was awarded an internship with the jazz programming department at Washington DCs prestigious Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts where she assisted with the Dr. Billy Taylor radio series as well as working as an audio engineer and programming assistant for three other jazz performance series. In 2003, Holmes traveled to Brazil as guest vocalist of a student and alumni jazz quintet representing WMU. The success of the 5-concert tour inspired Holmes to return to Brazil, and in 2004, Holmes was awarded an Emerging Artist Grant by the Arts Council of Greater Kalamazoo to aid her studies in Portuguese language and music in Salvador and Belo Horizonte, Brazil.
Also following graduation, Holmes recorded, engineered, mixed, and produced her debut album, the Climb, released in 2005. Reflecting her varied influences, one can hear Brazilian music, refreshing arrangements of jazz standards, as well as jazz-tinged covers of popular songs. In the fall of 2006, Holmes will begin work towards a Master of Music in jazz performance at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign under the tutelage of Dr. Barrington Coleman and Professor Chip McNeill. Upon graduation, she will be the first vocalist to receive a Masters degree in jazz from the institution.
Holly currently performs in the Midwest with her jazz quartet and jazz duo with guitarist and professor Matthew Warnock, as well as with other ensembles in several genres. She has performed abroad in Canada, Belgium, France, and Brazil as well as for the International Association of Jazz Education conference in 1997. Hollys college vocal jazz ensemble, Emerge, won a Downbeat Student Music Award in 1998. As a teacher, she encourages healthy singing for all ages and for all styles, whether classical, musical theater, jazz, or pop.
Informal bio:
I am a jazz singer, lyricist, arranger, reader of books, cook, gardener, sailor, futebol-watcher, speaker of two languages and singer of five, wonderer and wanderer, vegetarian, daughter, sister, aunt, friend, cousin, and damn fine wife. After six great years working in arts administration, gigging, and eventually running off to live in Brasil, I am living in Champaign and happy to again be a student of music and life.
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