Tona Brown, who's set to break fresh ground as the first-ever transgender person of color to take the stage at Carnegie Hall, spoke at length about the challenges of identifying as LGBTQ in the African-American community as part of her HuffPost Live interview this week.
"Our community is still at the point where we, as people of color...we have deep-seated issues with a person transitioning or being LGBTQ," Brown, who is both a violinist and mezzo-soprano, said. "We need to change that as well."
Set for June 25, Brown's Carnegie Hall performance will feature music from her debut album "This Is Who I Am," a tribute to African-American composers, which includes the songs "Deep River" and "Dream Variations."
"I have dreamed of performing at Carnegie Hall since I was 14 years old, when I was attending the Governor's School for the Arts in Norfolk, Virginia," she told The Huffington Post in an interview last month. "I started tearing up while telling my friends, because I thought of all the great artists who have crossed that stage. Many of them had enormous obstacles to overcome, like I do as a transgender person of color in America."
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