Do Re Mi Fa SOOOOOO far from where she thought she was headed, but exactly where she is meant to be. Denise's voice takes on the highs and lows of charting an untraditional path.
*Denise was shaped by Dr. Carl W. Haywood and Mr. Terry Butler of the NSU Choirs and her voice teachers, Dr. Patricia Saunders Nixon and Mrs Gloria Amos. We honor their contributions to Denise, and so many other students' pursuit of making sweet sweet sounds.
https://www.opera4us.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sissieretta_Jones
https://afrovoices.com/sissieretta-jones-biography/
https://elizabethrivertrail.org/
https://www.nps.gov/locations/chesapeakebaywatershed/index.htm
https://virginiahumanities.org/
Denise Battle-Price: I am Denise Nicole Battle-Price. I've recently been married. Woo woo!
(Soft, nostalgic organ and guitar music gently underscores the following)
Nichole Hill: Before the opera houses and auditions, there was a little Black girl with a voice big enough to stretch across Sunday mornings and kitchen counters. This is where we begin, where the dream hummed itself awake.
Denise Battle-Price: I'm a singer. I sing. I grew up singing. I love singing. I sang in church. I sang in the church choir. I had solos here and there. I sang at a nursing home with my Dad.
I wanted to go into musical theater initially. I wanted to be a gospel singer. I wanted to sing on Broadway. I said, "I want to sing Lion King on Broadway and I wanna be Yolanda Adams at the same time."
Nichole Hill: Now, some folks are born knowing their path. But others, well, they meet a guide, a voice in the car that summoned a new sound, a new self.
Denise Battle-Price: I was 14, and my teacher then, Dr. Joyce Harding, she introduced me to opera by giving me voice lessons. And initially, I did not want to do opera because I thought that was for rich white people.
I didn't see anybody who looks like me that sang opera. I said, "What is that?" And I heard it before, but I never experienced it, and didn't know anyone who had experienced it.
(“Fare thee well” by Jesse Norman and Kathleen Battle starts and underscores the following)
Denise Battle-Price: Mrs. Joyce Harding, she was like a mom or a great aunt or something.
So this one evening in particular, I can't remember if we were coming for a performance or we were headed somewhere and we were sitting in her car. I remember she showed me a couple of CDs, and it was the spirituals concert of Jesse Norman and Kathleen Battle.
At the time, I didn't know who they were. I said, "They sound really good--who is this?"
I was just so entranced, and I said, "Oh, wow, this is beautiful."
(Music swells, then fades out)
She kind of had a moment. She turned the music down. She said, "I want you to think about something. I want you to consider looking into singing classical music. "
And I said “Like them?” And she said “Yes”.
(Soft piano music underscores the following)
Dr. Joyce had--she had like this congested voice about her. And she would say, "You know, Denise, I just don't want you to understand that you have a voice. You are not like everybody else. You know that you're not like everybody else. You are special." That's how she said it. (Laughs)
And I got quiet and I was like, "What you mean? Like, I wanna sing Yolanda Adams, I wanna sing gospel music. I wanna sing musical theater. I don't wanna sing opera."
And she said, “But Denise, you're telling stories. It's so much beautiful literature. And the spirituals in particular are telling the experiences of our people, of our ancestors, what we've been through here in this country. The struggles they had to go through and spirituals weren't just song, they were messages to each other, what we wore in our hair, everything.”
And so hearing that and being educated on that my appreciation grew deeper, but I kind of, I felt this resistance, like as she was talking to me, I was just listening.
I was just like, "No. Mm, I'm not doing this." I just had this strong stance on not doing it.
But she told me in that instance, in my stubbornness at the time, she said, "There will come a time. I believe that you will pursue this, and it will be so beautiful. You'll have one of the most beautiful voices."
So yeah, that was the first seed planted.
Nichole Hill: Sometimes the journey to purpose requires the scenic route. It bumps. It loops. It reroutes through doubt and pride. But sometimes, destiny has a hometown zip code, and a choir with open arms.
Denise Battle-Price: I auditioned for other schools outside of the Hampton Roads area. Didn't get into those schools. And so. My voice teacher Mrs. Harding said, “Well, Norfolk State has a concert choir.” And she said, “I think that would be a great place for you at least to keep singing, but you also gonna take voice lessons. They have amazing teachers there just to get your start and see where your path goes from there.”
So me being the stingy, small-minded teenager, at the time that I was, I was listening to too many voices. People were saying, oh, Norfolk State it is, it's ghetto, It doesn't have any class, this, that, and the third.
But my experience was different when I went there.
So I received a scholarship through the choir, and that began my journey with singing.
(Musical bridge from NSU Choir)
Denise Battle-Price: When I went into school and I started studying Norfolk State and I started taking voice lessons and I saw the shift in my voice just by being introduced to technique, understanding I'm not gonna say how to sing because I think that's a natural-born ability, but how to train your voice to execute a certain way. I was just used to belting, you know, growing up singing, contemporary singing, gospel music R&B,
(Sings in R&B Style) Amazing Grace...
But an opera is more so, it's, it's all breath so (Sings Amazing Grace in operatic style)
And not saying you can't do that in, in gospel music and R&B, but classical music is very intricate, very detailed. You notice how I kind of added more emphasis on consonants or vowels, versus in Gospel when I was singing Gospel. Amazing Grace. You kind of just throw the phrase away, but it's still pretty, versus in opera, Amazing--
You kind of have to lean in more into the phrase, lean in more into how you're shaping the line, shaping what you're singing.
Nichole Hill: Not all voice teachers or experiences come with warm-ups and words of encouragement. Some come with ultimatums. Denise would soon encounter a woman who wasn’t "just a voice teacher," didn’t show up to coddle, but to confront. What came next wasn’t just training... it was transformation.
Denise Battle-Price: And she told me when I first started studying with her, I cannot listen to any other type of music. I have to talk a certain way. And this was like completely different, right? I was singing in the concert choir. Mind you, I was getting a scholarship at the time too from a concert choir.
And it wasn't like it was a surprise 'cause I was warned, but I said, 'okay." She said, "so you have a decision to make."
Slow Violin starts and underscores the following
"Do you want to sing or you just want to be a regular somebody?"
And that's how she was. But I needed that. I needed that, I’m not going to say slap in the face. I needed that directness, I needed that type of mindset to understand the severity of where I was.
It was that shock factor. It was the stories I was singing. It was singing in a different language, and I was like, this is so freaking cool.
Nichole Hill: Denise went out into the world, Austria, New York City, chasing stages, catching wisdom, and carrying her voice like a passport. Like Black Opera Legend and Hampton Roads' own, Sissieretta Jones before her, she sang in spaces never meant for voices like hers. Where Sissieretta serenaded presidents and royals, Denise found herself singing for Stevie Wonder… vibrating across generations.
But legacy isn’t just built in curtained houses with curved balconies
Sometimes, it’s in a friend’s Homework House with the most honest audience.
(Sounds of kids playing)
Nichole Hill: Imagine a room full of possibility, juice boxes on the table, sneakers on the floor… and one voice cutting through the noise like sunlight. A new audience, the best kind of critics: children.
Denise Battle-Price: And she had about like 12, 13 kids coming. She had her dog at the time, big white dog, and he was so loving, so adorable.
Nichole Hill: No tickets. No tuxedos. Just kids, wide-eyed, wriggling, and unfiltered.
Denise Battle-Price: And she asked me to sing whatever I wanted to sing.
(Kids noises quiet down)
Nichole Hill: And when Denise sang for them, it wasn’t just a performance. It was a homecoming.
Denise Battle-Price: So I said, I'm gonna sing Summertime.
(”Summertime” sung in operatic style that continues under the following)
Little, little Black and Brown kids. And we, I, I remember them sitting in the, in the room. They was just, you know, just finish coming from recess and doing their homework.
I started singing and the faces that they made. I'm talking about, you know how little kids love something?
They're in shock. And you know, kids will tell you the truth. They like something, they don't like something. But those kids, they were locked in. I saw a couple mouths open. Even the dog was just so quiet. He was just laying there. And at that moment, that was one of the seeds that I remember affirmed why I do Opera For Us.
(Summertime first verse continues and fades)
Nichole Hill: What happens when the student becomes the creator? When the lessons bloom into a legacy?
Denise Battle-Price: Opera For Us. We are an internationally known opera company of BIPOC singers and instrumentalists. What started out with Opera was a very intimate performance for rich families.
So with Opera For Us, I decided to take that, and but make it more connected with the community.
Being a part of all these amazing opera companies, I was able to learn what happens in an Opera behind the scenes.
And so with Opera For Us, I said, you know, what is, what can I do to make Opera more accessible, more relatable for people who've never heard Opera, who've never seen or heard a Black person singing Opera, who've never thought about their life being told in an art form and experience. And I said, How can I make this into something that connects with people on a deeper level?
Didn't have much money, but I had passion. The one main feedback I got was-- you need to keep telling these stories. You need to keep doing this. This is needed.
(Violin begins to play)
Nichole Hill: From the pulpit to the parlor to the platforms that once said “Not for you,” Denise Nicole Battle-Price sang her way through. And now? She sings for all of us.
(Denise sings “Balm in Gilead”)
Nichole Hill: Visit our website Truthbetoldcommunity.com to find out ways to get involved, and share this episode with friends.
This series was written by Jackie Glass and Hannah Sobol, edited and hosted by me, Nichole Hill, Sound Design by Trendel Lightburn, and our work has been supported by the Elizabeth River Trail Foundation through a National Park Service Chesapeake Gateways Grant. Follow our work by subscribing wherever you get your podcasts. We couldn’t do this without people brave enough to share their experiences, so thank you Denise!