Music lovers are in for a treat when award-winning soprano Kearstin Piper Brown performs at St. Paul AME Church tomorrow night.

Miss Brown?s stage experience spans from opera, to musical theatre and concert performances and her operatic credits include Countess Almaviva in performance of Le Nozze di Figaro with the Opera Colorado Outreach Ensemble.

The International Institute of Vocal Arts in Chiari, Italy and Northwestern University?s School of Music.

She created the role of Berta in a workshop production of T.J. Anderson?s new opera Slip Knot, directed by Rhonda Levine.

Her other roles include Musetta in La Boh?me, the title role in Dido and Aeneas, Tatyana in Eugene Onegin, and Gretel in Hansel and Gretel.

The Annual Christmas Concert, which is under the distinguished patronage of Reverend Lanel Guyton and Mrs. Guyton, begins at 6 p.m.

The concert will also feature youth guest artist is organist Cornell Fox II and The Senior Choir of St. Paul AME Church.

The musical director is Cecil G. Smith. and the pastor is Rev. Lanel Guyton.

During an interview with , Miss Brown said that she and her accompanist, Thomas Wright, were looking forward to this weekend?s concert.

This is Miss Brown?s second visit to the Island, having first visited with a college buddy in June 2001.

?We enjoyed ourselves immensely and had a hard time leaving the Island,? she said, ?and hopefully, this visit won?t be my last?.

For concert goers Miss Brown has some treats in store.

?The concert will feature the Cantata for Voice by John Carter,? said the soprano. ?This piece is special because Carter takes traditional African-American spirituals and hymns and composes them into a European musical form. I will also sing spirituals and a Christmas favourite, O Holy Night.?

Although she only recently went professional, Miss Brown has been singing in schools and church choirs ever since she was ten years old.

?In my late teens, I began private voice lessons and embarked upon my professional singing career almost three years ago,? she said. ?I first fell in love with musical theatre in my sixth grade debut as Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz.

?With my early stage experience in ballet dance and my skill in singing, the combination was natural for me.?

But a few years ago while working as a journalist for a National Public Radio Station, everything changed.

?While interviewing many acclaimed conductors and singers about their upcoming performances, I thought to myself, ?I can do that, too.?

?I left my job and enrolled in Northwestern University to get going on my Masters degree in vocal performance.

?I also realised that with gifts and talents come responsibility and if you don?t use what God gives you, then you?re not fulfilling your destiny and receiving the blessings that He has for you.

?God gave me music, and I do my best to share it with others.?

Miss Brown recently won the acclaim of audiences and critics alike in the roles of Clara and Bess, in the Porgy and Bess world tour. She made her Kennedy Center debut last fall with the Hines-Lee Opera Ensemble.

But she said: ?I?d have say that my favourite performance in opera was the role of Contessa Almaviva in an Opera Colorado performance of Le Nozze di Figaro.

?In musical theatre, my portrayal of Sarah, in Stephen Flaherty?s Ragtime earned me a ?Best Leading Actress in a Musical? nomination from the Black Theater Alliance in Chicago.?

She has performed the Vaughan Williams Dona Nobis Pacem with the Cedar Rapids Concert Chorale and Orchestra in a tribute to the legendary William Warfield. Her other concert credits include Pergolesi?s Stabat Mater, and the Nelson Mass, by Haydn and when asked how her love for opera developed, she said: ?When I was very young, I used to sing along with recordings mimicking the operatic voices.

?I was overcome by the intense drama in singing and that is what I love most about opera.?

Early next year Miss Brown will appear in the Dayton Opera production of Common Ground, celebrating the life of poet Paul Laurence Dunbar and she will also make her hometown Alexandria, Virginia, debut in the hit musical Caroline, or Change.

Tickets are available from members of the choir or the Church office priced at $25.