Heather Headley

R&B vocalist Heather Headley entered the world in Trinidad during the mid-1970s. Music and performance surrounded this pastor’s daughter from her earliest years, and by age four she had already begun concert piano studies. The island’s vibrant blend of calypso, soca, and reggae soon became her everyday soundtrack, planting the seeds that would later draw her toward a professional singing career. When her family relocated to the United States just before she turned fifteen, Headley absorbed the country’s musical idioms and learned to navigate their intricate demands. After graduating high school with honors, she pursued studies in communications and musical theater at Northwestern University.

Her Broadway debut arrived in 1997 when she portrayed Nala in Disney’s stage production of The Lion King. The performance prompted Disney to invite her to audition for the Elton John/Tim Rice musical Aida; she accepted and delivered a commanding portrayal of the Nubian princess Aida that secured her a Tony Award in 1998. Three years afterward, Headley stepped away from the theater to launch a recording career, signing with RCA and releasing her debut album This Is Who I Am in the fall of 2002. January 2006 brought the follow-up In My Mind, which climbed into the Billboard 200 Top Ten and broadened her audience. Three years later she returned with the contemporary gospel project Audience of One, mixing newly written songs with renditions of the Commodores’ “Jesus Is Love” and Fred Hammond’s “Running Back to You.”