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Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti's Anita Johnson shines on White House stage

Wednesday, March 04, 2009

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Even Stevie Wonder could see one of Ypsilanti's brightest stars shining during his performance at the White House.

Excerpt:

Wayne Brady wants to buy her CD.

President Barack Obama praised her "lovely" voice. "He had his arm around me, he touched me," she screamed to her mother.

The women wanted to know who - not what - she was wearing.

The Washington Post gushed about her "pure, gleaming" soprano rendering of Stevie Wonder's 1970s ballad, "I Never Dreamed You'd Leave in Summer."

Wonder himself wants her to coach him on technique.

Ypsilanti's own Anita Johnson's life changed this week, and everybody who's paying attention in the music world knows it.

Johnson, Ann Arbor-born and Ypsilanti-raised, is a New York-based lyric coloratura operatic soprano, the kind of light and agile soprano whose range can extend two scales above high C.

She sang Wednesday night at the White House, at the request of�� pop legend Wonder, who was honored by the Library of Congress and Obama with the Gershwin Lifetime Achievement Award

Read the rest of the story here and The Washington Post's coverage of it here.