“Pocket-sized mezzo” Taylor Hillary Boykins can be found sharing her talents all over the greater Baltimore/Washington area. During the 2018-2019 season, she was in recital with Thrive Music Live, followed by an appearance with St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church as alto soloist for their performance of Duruflé’s Requiem.  She began 2019 with a bang— in collaboration with local chamber favorites Bedlam Brass, Mind on Fire, and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra for the Dan Deacon Pulse show at the Meyerhoff. In late spring, she was featured for a second time with the Maryland Choral Society, she was a national finalist in The American Prize Competition for the Friedrich and Virginia Schorr Memorial Award in Voice: Women in Opera, and she’ll be serving as an ambassador for Maryland Opera’s Opera-To-Go program for a third season. 2017-2018 season took Taylor to the West Coast, debuting as alto soloist with the Gonzaga University University Concert Choir, performing Michael Tippett’s A Child of Our Time in Spokane, WA. She was later deemed a finalist for the 2018 Chicago Oratorio Award. In 2016-2017, Taylor was commissioned to perform An Evening of Opera; a lecture recital held at the University of Toledo in March of 2017. In fall of 2016, she made her debut as alto soloist in Gustav Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde, with one of Baltimore’s innovative chamber orchestras, Symphony Number One. This season, Taylor will be performing with Annapolis Opera, Mind On Fire, The Mainstay Rock Hall, The George Peabody Library’s: In The Stacks concert series, et al. She earned her Master of Music degree in vocal performance from the Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University, where she was a protégé of Denyce Graves. A native of Michigan, she received her Bachelor of Music degree from Oakland University in Rochester, MI as a student of contralto, Nadine Washington.