This is the inaugural episode of NURJ Talks in a series called Voices of Diversity, where we invite guest artists from the BIPOC community. This series is part of the 1851 Project, a publication we started last June to amplify the voices of historically underrepresented communities. Today we have our guest artist Freddie Ballentine who recently graduated from Washington National Opera's Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist Program.

Interviewed by John Cao and Soumya Jhaveri

Edited by Carrie Zeng

Intro Music: Storiella d'amore by Puccini, performed by Frederick Ballentine