(upbeat piano music) (singing in German) - From the time I came into this world I've been singing way before I can talk.

I grew up singing in my parents' church.

Gospel was all I knew.

When I was little, I wanted to be like the great gospel singer, the gospel singer, Mahalia Jackson, Yolanda Adams, even Aretha Franklin because she was in the church.

I did not have a love for opera until I performed in my first sacred performance at St. Vincent, and that was where I received a lot of recognition from my family, my friends, people who have always known that I could sing but they have never heard me sing operatically before.

One of my most memorable moments was accomplishing my dream of singing at the Metropolitan Opera in the Grammy award-winning production of Gershwin's Porgy and Bess.

That whole experience changed my life forever, especially since Porgy and Bess was the first opera that I ever learned about.

This definitely is a calling to me.

There is something about opera that just makes me stand out in ways that I could never sing another genre before.

Starting out, I will always go back to my home singing gospel and hymns but I could use opera to sing those hymns.

(singing opera) Opera is important because it's a genre that not everybody in my generation even knows, especially where you don't see someone who looks like me do it.

Opera is the most magnificent thing that I could ever do.

To say that it's easy, (laughing) absolutely not, but I've learned that what you want to do is never easy to pursue but you have to love the art form more than it loves you.

You have to know that this is what you were called to do.

If you don't see yourself doing anything else then do it.

I just want to simply do what I love and share my gift that God gave me himself with others.

(audience applauding)