CODY ENGLANDER
Staff writer
“I decided to take a look at my inner dialogue, and thought, ‘If I could write a letter to my younger self, what would I say?’” reflected St. Louis native vocalist Alicia Olatuja on the subject of her full debut of “Dear Lisa: Letters to My Childhood.” The performance will take place at 8 p.m. tonight in the Amphitheater.
Backed by a quartet, “Dear Lisa” draws musical influences from jazz, gospel, theater and classical and is constructed of songs, stories and reflections inspired by letters she wrote from her current self to her younger self: the titular Lisa.
“I’ve only done smaller versions of [the performance] as a duo just to explore the music a bit,” Olatuja said. “Chautauqua will also be one of the first places where the full band will be present. I will be getting to experience the fullness of the music at the same time as the audience.”
The idea for “Dear Lisa” came when she reflected on what the world taught her, thinking of things she wished to tell her younger self. Although Olatuja didn’t originally intend to use the letters as a musical outlet, the letters transformed into a euphonious exploration of childhood, self and identity.
Since then, she’s become an educator herself, teaching at several educational institutions including The University of Texas, The University of Illinois, Baylor University, Snow College, and several schools in Turkey, Serbia and Japan. She also founded the Vocal Breakthrough Academy, an institution to help singers and non-singers connect with themselves.
“It’s a program where I help people learn to connect them to who they truly are, and use singing as a tool for personal development — even if they’ve never sang a day in their life,” she said. “I love using the voice as a litmus test of what dialogue is going on inside of you.”
For Olatuja, education is important for remaining a vigilant artist, not just as a tool for the student’s self-fulfillment journey, but also her own.
“By experiencing through learning and remaining an eternal student, learning is power,” she said. “Bearing witness to that moment where something clicks and people have breakthroughs, it’s not just for the person having the breakthrough, it’s also for the person assisting.”
Understanding personality through music is pivotal to Olatuja and her works, and is perhaps most pervasive in “Dear Lisa.”
“When you do this sort of exploration about memory and identity, becoming whoever you are before the world tells you who you were, that’s the most important message,” she said, reflecting on the themes of tonight’s performance.
On top of self-identity holding such ubiquitous prevalence in Olatuja’s music, live music speaks to her differently than recording music, with both carrying a unique impact on her and the audience alike.
“Recording is like surgery. You get a chance to focus under a microscope and just focus on the music, just the artistry alone. You don’t have to think about if the audience is getting what you’re doing in real time,” she remarked. “… Live [music] is a different type of magic. When I perform live, I feel like I’m a bit of a prism. I’m standing in front of everyone in real time and have to open myself up to what is happening musically and allow it to pass through me and to then affect the audience members.”
