By Tom Lady
“My high school had this Jumbotron on the side of the school to showcase students’ work. I applied [to the school] having no idea of its competitive nature,” says soprano Thalia Moore, trying not to laugh.
Thalia is the Opera League’s featured vocalist at our upcoming annual Black History Month recital on Sunday, February 16, produced by African Americans for LA Opera, a League chapter. Click here to buy tickets.
Developing Her "Steely" Pipes
The school with the Jumbotron? That would be Pittsburgh Creative and Performing Arts (CAPA), a magnet school in downtown Pittsburgh's Cultural district offering seven arts majors: visual arts, literary arts, theater, production technology, instrumental music, vocal music and dance.
So, did she get in? “I was accepted and majored in vocal music,” she says. “I was in school all the time and couldn’t get enough of it.” Beaming, she adds, “You could say I was innocently ambitious!”
Born and raised in Loma Linda, California, Thalia relocated to Pittsburgh during fourth grade when her mother, a union contract negotiator, transferred from California’s nurses’ union to Pittsburg’s steelworkers’ union.
By the time she landed in the Steel City, Thalia’s love of music had already been planted by her late father. A math professor, Thalia’s father was also an opera lover, spending the few short years he had with her exposing her to the vocal acrobatics of Denise Graves and Katherine Battle, among other noteworthy Black sopranos.
Thalia had only just landed at CAPA when she learned that her opera workshop teacher was also chorus master at the annual Pittsburg Festival Opera. “He would pull students from his workshop to volunteer and perform at the festival. That’s how I got to perform in [George Gershwin’s] Porgy and Bess and [Kurt Weill’s] Lost in the Stars. I was hooked.”
Rewarding as CAPA was, Thalia passion for vocal arts had seemingly exhausted itself. “After graduation, I moved back to Southern California with my mom,” she explains. “I floated around community colleges but didn’t pursue singing with much purpose because was so burned out.”
Desert Renewal
One of those community colleges was Riverside County’s Norco College, a small school with a modest performing arts program. “Their chorus only has twelve people,” Thalia points out. When Thalia realized her performing arts peers at Norco hadn’t had much exposure to live, professional performances, she made it her mission to introduce the to the likes of LA Opera and Los Angeles Master Chorale, among other local cultural stalwarts. It was through that process of watching experiencing live musical theater and opera through her peers’ fresh eyes that reignited Thalia’s passion. Thalia loved the experience at Norco, including getting more exposure to theater’s back-office, administrative side.
Just after transferring to California State University, Fullerton, majoring in their music program’s Voice track, her love for art form reclaimed, the pandemic hit. Suffice it to say taking chorus lessons via Zoom “was a struggle,” Thalia recalls. “The professor would break us up into smaller groups to get to know each other, since choir is all about community building. And after getting to know each other in these breakouts, we were told to turn off our webcams and ‘practice musicianship.’ I shouldn’t say this,, but there were some days when I would turn off my laptop camera and take a nap. It was just a lot to go through. I felt like Sisyphus. I had to keep digging down to find reasons to keep showing up.”
In hindsight, Thalia sees a silver lining in those otherwise interminable 18 months. “I’m so grateful because now I know what a self-motivator I can be, and you really need that in this business to keep going.”
Once in-person classes resumed, Thalia got “right back where I wanted to be, being with other people, making music.”

Black expression: At the beginning of her senior year at Cal State Fullerton, the professor polled the Voice class for a theme they could use for the showcase recital. “I shouted, ‘Black women!’” Thalia says. She relished the opportunity to select the songs both she and her peers performed at the end-of-year recital. She didn’t just get to pick the songs for her fellow seniors. The undergrads and masters students likewise got their set lists courtesy of Thalia.
Joining the Alliance
Making music included making her mark at the African American Art Song Alliance, an advocacy organization based at UC Irvine "that promotes and uplifts the contributions made by African-Americans to art song, including composers, performers and scholars." Every five years, the Alliance hosts a conference at UC Irvine for scholars and performers, including students.
As it happened, the latest edition of the Alliance’s conference happened soon into Thalia’s junior year at Cal State Fullerton in the fall of 2022. Not only that, but with the Alliance having been founded in 1997, this conference also celebrated the organization’s 25th anniversary. Her mentor, who had studied voice under George Shirley, the first African American tenor who performed at the Met, encouraged Thalia to apply, not that she needed much encouragement. It was not lost on Thalia what an opportunity this could be. “This conference is the coolest thing,” Thalia says. “You had people coming from all over the world, diasporic music from all over the world. It was so cool to see how many other countries and cultures have their own classical music to share.”
Thalia got accepted to the conference’s Margaret Bonds Recital at the event where she performed Bonds’ Three Dreams Portrait,” a song cycle based on three poems by that sets three poems by Langston Hughes.
Suffice it to say Thalia was a hit, just as the conference was a hit with her. “I got to meet many Black composers and learn how they carry the Black traditions of the past into today. It really opened my eyes to different possibilities, and learn about important Black musical figures of the past, like the Chevalier de Saint-Georges, Florence Price, Leslie Adams…"
Thalia channeled this momentum into her senior year’s showcase recital for Voice majors. At the beginning of the semester, the professor polled the class for a theme they could use for the recital. “I shouted, ‘Black women!’” Thalia says. When the other students agreed, the professor asked Thalia if she had recommendations. “Boy, did I have recommendations!” she laughs. “I felt like I could plan this whole recital.” And so, she did, thanks partly to what she’d learned, the legendary Black singers she was exposed to, at the African American Art Song Alliance the previous year. Thalia relished the opportunity to select the songs both she and her peers performed at the end-of-year recital. She didn’t just get to pick the songs for her fellow seniors. The undergrads and masters students likewise got their set lists courtesy of Thalia.
Black Expression
Since graduating from Cal State Fullerton, Thalia kicked off a series of three recitals called Reflections of Black Expression, inspired by her falling in love with everything she’d learned as a Voice major. Part one was a recital called Reflections of Black Expression in Past, Present, and Future, performed with Los Angeles-based Pacific Opera Project (POP).
Black Expression through Passion, the second recital, was inspired by the art songs of H.T. Burleigh. A Black classical composer, arranger and professional baritone from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. H.T. Burleigh is credited as the first Black composer who was instrumental in making Black music available to classically trained artists both by introducing them to spirituals and by arranging spirituals in a more classical form.
As Thalia learned more about historical Black musical figures and their legacies, she came across H.T. Burleigh’s less known, more passionate side. “I had a chance to experience H.T. Burleigh’s art songs, and how torrid and sensual his songs could be,” she explains. “I was surprised because I’d only known him as a composer of spirituals. I had no idea he had a sexual song cycle. There’s so much life and reflection in these other, underappreciated pieces.”
Thalia performed the Black Expression through Passion recital at First Presbyterian in Berkley. When I asked what drew her up there instead of a venue more local to her Orange County home, Thalia said she was already in San Francisco performing in San Francisco Opera’s production of Omar. “SF Opera needed an extra soprano in their in-house chorus for Omar. I was inspired to apply for that because some of my peers from Cal State Fullerton were in LA Opera’s Omar [in October 2022]. While I was in the Bay Area, I scored a church gig to earn some extra money. I got to know the church community up there. When I came back to L.A. after Omar to do a production of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, I started planning the Black Expression through Passion recital, and I decided to do it up north at Berkley’s First Presbyterian.”

Since graduating from Cal State Fullerton, Thalia kicked off a series of three recitals called Reflections of Black Expression, inspired by her falling in love with everything she’d learned as a Voice major. Part one was a recital called Reflections of Black Expression in Past, Present, and Future, performed with Los Angeles-based Pacific Opera Project (POP). Part two, performed at First Presbyterian in Berkley, was Black Expression through Passion, inspired by the "torrid and sensual" art songs of H.T. Burleigh. She performs the third and final installment: An Ode to Minnie Riperton’s Come to My Garden, at the Opera League's annual Black History Month recital on Sunday, February 16, 2025. Thalia says her song list for the recital includes selections by H.T. Burleigh, Aldophus Hailstork and H. Leslie Adam, among others.
Come to Her Garden: The Black History Month Recital
That leads us to the third and final installment in Thalia’s Reflections of Black Expression series: An Ode to Minnie Riperton’s Come to My Garden. This will be the recital she performs for Opera League members and friends at our annual Black History Month recital on Sunday, February 16. Thalia says her song list for the recital includes selections by H.T. Burleigh, Aldophus Hailstork and H. Leslie Adam, among others.
Planning recitals or not, Thalia stays busy. While she pays the bills as a project assistant for an engineering company, she performs with the Long Beach Camerata Singers and on the extended roster of the DC6 Singers, an L.A.-based vocal ensemble. Thalia lights up when she recalls, “Remember when Solange Knowles had that three-night residency at Disney Hall [in October 204]? DC6 was part of that, I sang on the choir with them.”
The Four-legged Soprano's in Charge
Her mentioning Solange Knowles makes me ask her about the breadth of her musical tastes. “I’m a big Beyonce girlie! I love Sabrina Carpenter! I love yacht rock! Steely Dan is awesome! Christopher Cross… I really got into Earth, Wind and Fire a couple years ago. I think we need bring back layers in music. I could listen to Earth, Wind and Fire songs three or four times and discover something new every time.”
Among her newest hobbies, Thalia is rightfully proud to point out, is embroidering, which she picked up watching the Netflix series Bridgerton. “I watched the characters embroider, partly to pass the time back then, and eventually I decided to try my hand at it.” Had she actually embroidered anything yet, I asked? “My first project was a handkerchief,” she says. “It was for one my choir directors who sweats a lot.”
As if sensing our interview was winding down, Thalia’s dog enters the room and hops up on Mom’s lap for a little lovin’. Thalia laughs. “Have you met Lilly? I adopted her from the Orange County Shelter. I was told she was a Papillon, so I made up a story about why there’d be a Papillon at the shelter. I originally named her Lilly Boulangerie. But when they finally got a DNA test to confirm her breed, it turns out she’s not a Papillon at all. Lilly’s a Chihuahua-Pomeranian, a Mexican-German dog!” Thalia laughs. “And as you can see, Lilly’s a big-time soprano. Look at how attention seeking she is. And she loves music!”
Above: Thalia performs "Dream Variation," the second song in Margaret Bonds' "Three Dreams Portrait,” a song cycle based on three poems by Langston Hughes, at the African American Art Song Alliance Conference at UC Irvine in the autumn of 2022.
Would you like to hear Thalia's sublime singing live? Click here to book your place at the Opera League's annual Black History Month recital on Sunday, February 16.