Mrs. Nevilla E. Ottley-Adjahoe

NEVILLA E. OTTLEY, B.Mus.Ed., M.A. (organ & music history), M.Mus. (conducting) is the founder of the Ottley Music School, established in 1973 a year after she graduated with her Master of Arts in organ and music history from Andrews University where she had earned her B.Mus. in music education and piano performance. She came to Maryland after spending time in New York (accompanying the fledgling Boys Choir of Harlem) and New Jersey (teaching piano and organ at Garden State Academy) where she accompanied the bass baritone Wintley Phipps at age 17 at the beginning of his career. The Ottley Music Studio existed at first out of her home in Maryland, while she taught piano and theory, and later added other piano teachers, violin, voice and clarinet teachers. For more information on the development of her school and other work, see the Principal page above.

Nevilla, as a child of two Trinidadian singing parents, began her musical career as a singer at the age of 3, singing at what is now Andrews University. By the time she was almost 5, she had sung on the pilot radio show produced by Uncle Dan and Aunt Sue, known to children nationwide as "Your Story Hour." As an elementary child with two singing parents, Neville as a tenor, and Myra as a contralto, she sang all over Southern California and later in Trinidad with her siblings in the Ottley Trio. As a teenager she formed a ladies sextette called the Valley Echoes, which sang all over Trinidad. When she returned to the USA, she continued her college education at Andrews, singing in the University Chorale, taking voice lessons, and playing for voice lessons. When she came to the Washington, DC area, she coached and accompanied many singers in the church scene until she added voice lessons to the Ottley Music School ca 1989, with vocal student Anika Sampson at George E. Peters SDA Elementary School.

Mrs. Ottley makes sure that when students are prepared, she gives them the opportunity to sing not only in the monthly recitals at Ottley Music School, but also for churches, other community events, and Ottley Music School productions. Over the past 3 years the Summer Voice, Drama and Dance Camps/Institutes have immersed the students in The Sound of Music, Scott Joplin's Treemonisha and in A Century of Broadway. The 2004 fall production was Menotti's Amahl and the Night Visitors, 2005 was Mozart's The Empresario, 2006 was Amahl and A Miracle (excerpts from both Menotti's and Mark Fax's christmas operas), and Handel's Hallelujah Chorus which they performed with orchestra on W*USA Channel 9 in the Washington D. C. area. In 2007 they perform Elijah and Messiah scenes from the oratorios of Mendelssohn and Handel with the Hyattsville Symphony. Some of them were priveleged to go to Trinidad and to sing (and play) there in the summer of 2007 under the auspicies of the Trinidad and Tobago Ministry of Culture, Youth Development and Gender Affairs.

Some of her piano and voice students who have done well as vocalists include Barbara-Gene Brown, Hazel Thorpe, Anika Sampson, Anika Tene McKinney, Jasmine Murrell Brann, Amanda Ambrose, and now college student, coloratura Nichelle Anderson. Some of her piano students doing well include Victoria Alma Castello, Nicole Anderson, Tracy Scott, and the late Nathan Anderson. Some of her students have returned as faculty or staff members, such as Kieron Irwine (trumpet teacher), Anwar Ottley (former piano, organ and steel drums, Clayton Taylor (piano), and Jonathan Adjahoe (as network administrator). Others are serving in other leading capacities in various careers such as medical doctors, lawyers, speech pathologists, scientists, church choir directors, composers and arrangers, reporters for major news organizations, and business people.

Mrs. Ottley's piano students have always rated very high in both the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music and of the National Guild of Piano Teachers annual examinations and auditions (NGPT are for all instruments and voice through the Ensemble exams). Over the past 40+ years, her piano, organ and voice students have taken (and are still taking) places of responsibility in the music world and other fields internationally. Most of them have gone on to colleges and universities around the world as students and professors, such as Johns Hopkins University, Andrews University, Loma Linda University, Western Michigan University, University of Maryland, Oakwood College, Duke University, Howard University, Berkelee School of Music, Morgan State University, Bethune Cookman College, Mannes College, Princeton, Northern Caribbean University, University of the Southern Caribbean, Bowie State University and others.

Mrs. Ottley has high ideals and goals for all students and teachers of the Ottley Music School. She expects teachers to have the same level of motivation and achievement for their students as she expects of hers. Therefore, she has selected a faculty that we hope will continue the high ideals and level of achievement. She serves at the OMS as a teacher of piano, voice, organ, music theory, music history, and conducting, and is the Music Director and principal conductor of the Hyattsville Symphony, comprised of students, OM School teachers, and community musicians, including many of the Prince George's Philharmonic's "Symphony Kids." She also produces the concerts and operas at the OM School and directs the summer camp/institute programs. To request Nevilla E. Ottley as conductor or speaker at your next event, contact Voices of Diversity by clicking here.

Leonard Higgs

LEONARD HIGGS, B.S., Baritone was a psychology major at Howard University and graduated from the former Federal City College (now the University of the District of Columbia). He studied voice with the famed coloratura and master teacher, Charlotte Wesley Holloman for more than 10 years. He is in demand throughout the Washington, D. C. area as a sacred soloist. He is presently a professional member of the Heritage Signature Chorale in Washington, D. C. under the baton of Stanley Thurston.

Mr. Higgs performes arias of both opera and oratorio from Handel's Messiah, Rossini's Petite Messe Solonelle to name a couple, and played the role of Simon, the conjuror in Scott Joplin's opera "Treemonisha" with the Nevilla Ottley Singers, and Ned, the father in the same opera with the Municipal Opera of Baltimore. He sung the Priest in Carlos Gomes' opera, "Colombo" with the NOS. He had sung the role of King Melchior in Menotti's Christmas opera, "Amahl and the Night Visitors", and most recently sang King Balthazar in the Ottley Music School's production of that opera. He has also served as a choir director for several years, teaching the music and developing the voices of his youth and young adult choirs and has been a fine addition to the music voice faculty at OMS since 2003. 

Anika McKinney Prather, M.T.A., M.Mus.

Anika-Tene is an educator in the traditional sense. After receiving her B.A. in Elementary Education from Howard University, she taught for several years in the Montgomery County Public School system. After four years in the classroom, she completed her Master of Arts in Theatre Education from City University of New York.  She wanted to teach also in music, so after a year at Ottley Music School studying voice, piano,and music theory, she qualified to pursue and graduate with an Master of Music in Music Education from Howard University, with a focus in vocal coaching, two years later. She currently teaches music and drama at the Washington Classical Christian School (wccsonline.org), drama and Music for Little Mozarts at Ottley Music School, and at Ta-Dah!! while working on her doctorate in Speech and Theater Education.

Taana Gardner, Vocalist

TAANA GARDNER was one of the leading lights of West End Records, a New York label that released some of the finest and most influential disco during the late 1970s and early 1980s.  Here is information from http://www.disco-disco.com/artists/taana.shtml

When Taana was around 4 years old she already knew she wanted to perform and sing. She always used to sing and she used to tear down her great grandmother and grandmothers curtains from jumping behind them. Presenting herself like; "Ladies and Gentlemen... Taana Gardner!". Then she would jump from behind the curtains in the living room and also tear them down sometimes. She was actually banned from jumping from behind the curtains after a while. This is really a precious memory to her and as she says; "It feels just like yesterday, you know, when I was jumping from behind the curtains in my great grandmothers living room until today, it really feels like yesterday."
Her mother always used to play the piano and sing for the kids. That and Taana's first record - "Message to Michael" by Dionne Warwick - was what inspired her to want to sing. That song together with watching Tina Turner perform was what made her decide she wanted to become both a great performer as well as a singer.By the age of 5 her grandmother, who was a professional Opera singer, started training her to sing Opera. This is one of her more hidden talents, but she's really a very good Opera singer. Another of her hidden talents is that she actually started her career in the theatre. She wrote a few plays when she was about 11 yrs old and one of them ended up being played at the Lincoln Center and they also performed it at the Apollo. So, her first time professionally on stage was actually as an actress in one of her own plays.Ms. got her start in 1979 by doing the vocals on "Spooks In Space" by Aural Exciters (a. k. a. Kid Creole and the Coconuts). Soon after Taana gave us "Work That Body" and "When You Touch Me" on her LP for West End. In 1980 West End Records released "Heartbeat" and had it mixed by the late Larry Levan.  It went on to be the top selling 12 inch record in West End history.Until now she had put her career "on hold" to be a full time mom and (according to herself) she is a great mother to her 3 kids.However, she did not stop completely, for she has over two dozen releases throughout the decades including this one.  Gardner has also leant her skills to several acts, including Kool & the Gang, Peabo Bryson, Edwin Starr, and Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes.In 2008 Taana Gardner and her two young sons went to Maryland, where she met Nevilla Ottley and Edgar Adjahoe.  She joined the teaching staff of the Voice, Drama and Dance Institute offered by the Ottley Music School, adding tremendously to the program, where they were working on scenes from "High School Musical II." She returns this summer, this time to work on some Broadway and other stage works by Black composers.