Allison Hughes is a singer, director and teacher based in College Park, MD.  

Currently, she is the music director for the College Park Chorale, College Park Chamber Choir and the College Park Women’s Choir.   She directs staged productions of youth community musical theater, and  Allison also leads the fun and unusual (un)choir, a pop-up community sing.  She is a member of the folk/americana band Paint Branch Creek, and maintains a teaching studio in College Park, MD.

BIO

Soprano Allison Hughes has been singing since childhood, performing solos at school and church.  She began her formal vocal training in Fairfax, VA and went on to attend Shenandoah Conservatory in Winchester, VA and the University of Central Florida in Orlando, FL.  She has continued her education with master classes and workshops, and currently studies with David Chapman in Adelphi, MD. 

Ms. Hughes has presented solo and duet recitals in the DC area as well as in Orlando, FL.  She recently presented a program featuring composers from the DC area on the Music at Paint Branch series.   Other solo performances include the premier of Across the Wide, Songs of Farewell, a song cycle by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal, Schubert’s Mass in E flat for the Heart of the City Concert Series in Orlando, FL, and Schubert’s Auf dem Strom with Joseph Lee Thomas, French Horn.  She has performed several times in the Southwest Chamber Players recital series in Washington, DC, presenting sections of Brahms Lieder, Mahler Lieder and arias.  

Equally comfortable with dramatic vocal roles, Ms. Hughes has appeared as Prince Orlofsky in Johann Strauss’ Die Fledermaus, Cenerentola in Rossini’s Cenerentola and Carmen in Bizet’s Carmen.  She also played Marian in The Music Man.  She appeared with The Camerata, the opera chorus for the Orlando Opera, in the company’s 40th Anniversary Gala Concert featuring Denyce Graves.

Ms. Hughes’ choral performance credits include appearances at the Kennedy Center, Wolf Trap, Carnegie Hall, Prague’s Rudolphinum, and the Liszt Academy in Budapest.  She has sung under the batons of John Rutter, Edo de Waart with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Emil de Cou with the National Symphony Orchestra, Donald McCullough with the Prague Radio Symphony, and JoAnn Falletta with the Virginia Symphony.  As a member of the Master Chorale of Washington, Ms. Hughes has made several live choral recordings: Faure’s Requiem, Lauridsen’s Lux Aterna, and Melodious Accord, a concert of Harmonia Sacra music and shape note hymns with guest conductor Alice Parker.  She was also invited to sing with Schola Cantorum in a studio recording of We Are the Music Makers: Choral Works of David Brunner.   

In addition to singing and directing, Ms. Hughes maintains a private teaching studio.  She has also been employed as an urban organic vegetable farmer, cupcake baker, graphic designer, breastfeeding peer counselor, office manager, and event planner.  Ms. Hughes serves on the board of directors of College Park Arts Exchange and is a member of Sigma Alpha Iota music fraternity.   She is mother of 2 budding musicians and wife to Arun Ivatury, composer, singer and multi instrumentalist.