Lea Peterson

My skills and areas of expertise are varied, and my services are flexible. I can add music to an event by singing a few songs placed throughout a wedding or funeral service to highlight the themes of the day. Those can be songs that I suggest or requests from you, which I am happy to learn. Those requests can be anything from Bach to Frank Sinatra to Beyonce (I have sung all the above!).
I can also function as a front-woman for a band or ensemble at an event with ongoing live music. Additionally, I can perform as a solo lounge act, accompanying myself on piano and playing covers and originals in whatever genre you think best fits the mood of your business, festival, or venue.
As a singer, performer, pianist, composer, and musician with a decade of experience in classical music, folk music, non-traditional and new music, pop music, musical theatre, choral music, and other genres, I encourage you to reach out to me about your musical needs and how I can help.

Lea Peterson is a Boston-based singer, music director, vocal arranger, and voice teacher. As a classically trained mezzo-soprano Lea has an active soloist and ensemble career singing in churches; at weddings, at memorials and other events, at recitals, and in performances of all kinds. Lea also performs as a solo piano/vocal act at venues, festivals, and concerts across New England, singing everything from Joni Mitchell and Adele Covers, to folk tunes, musical theatre, and original compositions. In every performance Lea is dedicated to emotive musicality, healthy technique, language accuracy, and authentic emotional expression. Lea brings fastidious attention to details of rhythm, pitch, and musicality, especially as a chorus member, section leader, and ensemble singer; always striving for the ultimate goal of telling a story and illuminating shared humanity through music and arts.

Lea has worked with Et Al. (formerly The Brookline Consort), ACJW Carnegie Hall Fellowship, Harvard Pro Musica, Clouds and a Waffle Productions, Songful Artists, The Very Merry Dickens Carolers, and many other organizations. She is currently the alto soloist at Hancock United in Lexington and previously sang at Christ Church Needham where she also revitalized the youth choir, functioning as its music director and conductor. Most recently she performed Amy Beth Kirsten's fire (from Saviour) as part of a vocal trio as well as giving her Masters recital entitled The Multiplicty of Eve. Lea works as music supervisor for Clouds and a Waffle production, composing and facilitating music for varied projects as well as recording the theme song "If I Had a Dime" for a digital series of the same name. Lea is adept at performing post-tonal, atonal, and new works. She premiered Joi Harper's piece unshakeable in May of 2021 and previously debuted high-romantic, turn-of-the-century works by Stefania Turkewich as part of Longy School of Music’s New Music Marathon. Other premieres include “Never Seek to Tell thy Love” by Jobelle Mesa, which was written specifically for Lea's voice alongside double bass and piano, as well as “Eternal Summer” by Leigh Tooker -- an unaccompanied choral piece for 8-voices, which Lea directed with an 11-person chamber ensemble in which she was also a soprano.

Lea completed her M.M. in Vocal Studies at Longy School of Music of Bard College with a 4.0 GPA under studio teacher Pamela Dellal. She previously earned a B.A. in Music from Skidmore College, graduating summa cum laude with Honors in Music after only 3 years. She studied with soprano Sylvia Stoner-Hawkins and took notable masterclasses with Robert Glasper and Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon. In 2012 Lea was one of 6 singers to be awarded the Ensign Darling Vocal Fellowship at the Bushnell Center for the Arts, studying with teacher Joanne Scattergood, coach Starr Cookman, and taking masterclasses with Sondra Kelly, Ellie Ellsworth, Kristin Huffman and many others.

If I am working as a solo singer on a classical or standard piece then I sing without amplification (as is traditional for the genre), and I can either sing a cappella or with an accompanist.
As a pop or band singer I have a microphone and an amp that I will bring, or I will coordinate with other musicians to join into their existing sound system.
As a lounge act I have a keyboard, speaker, microphone set up -- essentially everything needed to broadcast my voice and my piano throughout the space. However, if it is a lounge, bar, or restaurant with a piano then I can simply amplify my voice over the piano or sing without amplification, depending on the volume and size of the space.