Dr. Jolie Rocke, a native New Yorker and renowned soprano is sharing the gift of song across the world. She has performed as a featured soloist in opera and concert tours of the USA, Europe, and Far North Queensland Australia. She was a young artist for two seasons with the Houston Ebony Opera Guild. Hartford Courant writer and critic Owen McNally marveled, "…a gifted, versatile vocalist who's as much at home soaring on opera arias and celestial hymns as she is getting down with funky blues and earthy jazz, just might, at long last, have the whole world in her hands thanks to her soulful album, Rock of Ages: Hymns for the Soul." Her other recording projects include Jolie Rocke Brown in Concert and E’en So Lord Jesus Quickly Come, which are all available through cdbaby.com, iTunes.com, amazon.com, and other media outlets.

 

Acclaimed as a singer and music educator, Dr. Rocke was honored by the Connecticut Women’s Hall of Fame in 2012. The Amistad Center for Art & Culture housed at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, honored her with the 2014 Spirit of Juneteenth Award. While her singing career continues to soar, her dedication to training and providing performing opportunities for young artists is unwavering. Jolie draws from her life experience when she takes the stage or works with aspiring young artists. Her passion for music and the desire to pass it on to her students leads her to produce concerts, direct community arts programs, and train aspiring singers as a private voice teacher, coach, and mentor. for more than twenty years Dr. Rocke served as a music teacher in the public schools of Hartford, Connecticut. 

 

Jolie earned a Doctor of Musical Arts in Vocal Performance from the University of Connecticut, a Master of Early Childhood Education from Loyola College in Baltimore, and a Bachelor of Music from the University of Hartford’s Hartt School.Currently a Lecturer of Music at Prairie View A&M University, she has taught at San Jacinto College (TX), Texas Southern University, Manchester Community College (CT), and the University of Connecticut. In 2022, she led the charge to re-establish the John ‘Blind” Boone Symposium for the Boone Heritage Foundation in Missouri. She most recently founded HBCU Arts, a program designed to showcase, promote, and celebrate students, faculty, and alums from Historically Black Colleges and Universities. In addition to teaching, performing, presenting master classes, and lecturing nationally, Dr. Rocke is the Director of Music at First Unitarian Universalist Church of Houston and Owner of Rocke Vocal Studio in Houston,