Soprano Makeda Hampton, of New Castle, Delaware, has studied and performed across the United States and Europe, including the American Institute of Musical Studies in Graz, Austria; Tyrolean Opera Festival in Maurach, Austria; Hawaii Performing Arts Festival in Waimea, Hawaii; New Jersey State Opera; and the 20th season of the SongFest Music Festival in Los Angeles.  Her opera roles include First Spirit (The Magic Flute), Lucy (The Telephone), and Adele (Die Fledermaus), Norina (Don Pasquale), Madame Silberklang (Der Schauspieldirektor), Olympia (Les Contes d'Hoffmann), and most recently covered Violetta (La Traviata) with University of Kentucky Opera Theater. Ms. Hampton performs frequently as a concert soloist, which have included performances with the Huntsville Youth Orchestra (AL) and the Sinfonietta Nova Orchestra (NJ). 

Ms. Hampton has toured and recorded with the American Spiritual Ensemble (Lexington, KY), Lloyd Mallory Singers (Takoma Park, MD), Abyssinian Baptist Church Chorale (Harlem, NYC), Westminster Symphonic Choir (Princeton, NJ), and the Oakwood University Aeolians (Huntsville, AL). 

Ms. Hampton has been very successful in singing competitions, including the Alabama NATS Auditions, Classical Singer Convention Young Artist Competition, the Montpelier Arts Center Classical Recital Competition, and the Austrian-American Society Music Competition. She was the 2007 award recipient of the Alma Blackmon Music Scholarship at Oakwood University and a Marian Anderson Historical Society voice scholar from 2008-2010 in Philadelphia, PA. In March 2016, Ms. Hampton won the sought-after first place award in the University of Kentucky's 11th Alltech Voice Competition. She was awarded a full scholarship and teaching assistantship, and also named a Lyman T. Johnson Graduate Fellow. 

Ms. Hampton is an assistant professor of music and taught applied voice and lyric diction at Oakwood University in Huntsville, AL from 2010 to 2016. She received a Master of Music in voice performance and pedagogy from Westminster Choir College in Princeton, NJ and a Bachelor of Music in voice performance from Oakwood University.  She also completed a "Leading People and Teams" specialization from the University of Michigan in 2016. Ms. Hampton is in her second year of pursuing a Doctorate of Musical Arts (DMA) in voice performance at the University of Kentucky in Lexington. Her research interests include the effects of slaves narratives in the performance of Negro spirituals and also the emerging field of vocology. Makeda's hobbies include cooking, playing basketball, and traveling; and, her passion includes mentoring and coaching young, under-represented singers for careers in the classical arts.