Holiday started singing and performing in church and in various choirs at a young age. When he was 12, he had a transformative encounter with one of opera’s biggest stars. As a member of a local boys’ choir, he was selected as the boy soloist in a Houston Symphony performance of Hector Berlioz’s La damnation de Faust. Mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves, an African American like Holiday, was singing the role of Marguerite.

“It was fun for me, being a soloist with her,” he says. “But it was more than that. She left an indelible mark on my heart and my spirit when I saw her. She showed me that someone who looked like me could do this. I had never thought of it, even though I was in the boys’ choir. I didn’t know any African American opera singers or classical singers, and then I saw her face and “she opened her mouth and everything that came out of it was gold.”

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