Toni Tupponce
About Toni
Toni Tupponce, lead vocalist and Program Director for 501 (C) 3 A Sign of the Times of the Carolinas, is a respected and sought-after stylist in the Charlotte region. She is a lyricist, writer and speaker on topics including social justice and cultural equity. She owns Tupponce Enterprises, II, Inc. a Charlotte based planning, facilitation and training consulting firm.
Contact: toni@asignofthetimes.org
History
Born in West Point, Virginia, she credits the congregation of her “home” church as her first audience – when she staged her own “mini-concert” on the steps of Mt. Nebo Baptist Church after Sunday service – she was four!
She began performing and was active in choral groups and dramatic arts throughout high school and college. She has been the lead vocalist in Durham, Winston- Salem, and Charlotte bands. She began singing with A Sign of the Times in 2001. She’s opened for Grammy-winning vocalists Jane Monheit and Jennifer Holliday; she was a featured artist at Charlotte’s Ritz Carlton Hotel from 2010 – to 2013.
Since 2011, she has performed to standing room only audiences for the Bechtler Museum of Art’s “Jazz for Lovers” Concerts. She’s performed for the Sun Set Jazz Festival in Frederiksted, U.S. Virgin Islands, and Southern Ireland venues. In 2014 she completed a musical retrospective of North Carolina native Nina Simone at Davidson College in North Carolina.
Highlights
She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from North Carolina Central University, a Masters in Regional Planning from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and is a returning Continuing Education student at Xavier University of Louisiana’s Institute for Black Catholic Studies.
The Charlotte Magazine named her “One of Charlotte’s “50 Most Interesting People” in 2004 and “The Sexiest Voice in Charlotte” in 2006.
Her discography includes: Grayson Warren Brown’s Been So Busy, 1987; All About Love, 2004; Connections, Too 2003; Ascension, 2006 and Just Friends, 2007.
Her new work with A Sign of the Times of the Carolinas includes a program called “LISTEN”, fulfilling her dream to bring her music and her community organizing work together and, most recently, she is developing a podcast called “Women Speak”, hosting conversations with women of all ages on issues facing them and the world!