Vocalist, composer, and educator Alicia Olatuja performs aural artistry in a wondrous weave of jazz, blues, gospel, classical, pop, and Afropop. Her embrace of those sonic stylings has enabled her to work with a wide variety of musicians—from jazz superstars Chris Botti, Billy Childs, Christian McBride, and Michael Olatuja to R&B and gospel legends Chaka Khan and BeBe Winans.

Inspired by Whitney Houston, Ms. Olatuja started singing at age five. The St. Louis native sang in the Berean Seventh-Day Adventist Church; listened to a wide variety of Black music that included jazz, R&B, and soul; and was classically trained as a mezzo-soprano. After double majoring in veterinary medicine and music at the University of Missouri, she earned her master’s degree in classical voice and opera from the Manhattan School of Music.

In 2013, Ms. Olatuja sang the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” with the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir at President Obama’s Second Inauguration. New York Daily News praised her as “a new musical star.”

In 2014, Ms. Olatuja sang with Billy Childs’s touring ensemble that performed music from Map to the Treasure: Reimagining Laura Nyro. She went on to work with many other artists. She played on bassist Christian McBride’s recording The Movement Revisited: A Musical Portrait of Four Icons. She has also worked with drummer Ulysses Owens Jr. on his Songs of Freedom, a Jazz at Lincoln Center commissioned project that featured the music of Abbey Lincoln, Joni Mitchell, and Nina Simone.

Ms. Olatuja’s debut recording, Timeless, earned a four-star review from DownBeat. Her second release, Intuition: Songs from the Minds of Women, featured compositions by women including Sade, Linda Creed, Kate Bush, Tracy Chapman, and Angela Bofill. In 2023, she recorded The Parsonage: True Tales of Love and Anarchy at 64 East 7th Street, which features vocalist Theo Bleckmann. Her forthcoming projects include a reunion recording with Michael Olatuja, with whom she has been touring since 2021, and a new solo project.