As the head of Global Human Resources for the Apple Corporation, Denise Young carved out a twenty-year career that proved both innovative and groundbreaking at one of America’s—and the world’s—most successful companies. During her tenure, a love of music and singing helped her to balance out roles as globe-trotting executive, wife and mother, and ultimately led to performances with A-list artists such as Grammy winner Larnelle Harris, Philip Bailey of Earth Wind and Fire, the Colorado Symphony, and friend and colleague Condoleezza Rice.
Coaching sessions with Barry Alexander and Cosmo Buono in order to refine her interest in the operatic repertoire of Verdi and Puccini would also include appearances in Italy as part of The Alexander & Buono Festival of Music, and two special guest appearances on the stage of Carnegie for the ABC Gala.
Expanding her interest from strictly classical repertoire over the years so as to re-visit strong ties to other musical idioms, she turned her attention to both jazz and more popular music to highlight a unique and personal style that is firmly rooted in the technique of her classical training, but which also has given way to a fusion approach that combines repertoire of different genres, in order to highlight their similarities versus their differences. It also led to her debut CD, Denise Young, Soprano (available on iTunes), which boasts a selection of operatic arrangements sung in tandem with jazz tunes, spirituals, and a cappella works, all performed in collaboration with Tuck and Patti Carthcart Andress, percussionist Juan Escovedo, and Grammy award-winning trumpeter and composer Terence Blanchard.
