Debbie Kirkland Adjunct Instructor Performing Arts

Degrees: BA Vocal Music Performance
Bio: Debbie Kirkland is an Adjunct Professor of Voice at American University. She also owns and teaches at The SingerStudio, her private voice studio that teaches voice and artist development. She attended the acclaimed Duke Ellington School of Arts and received her BA in Vocal Music Performance from the University of Maryland, College Park. While in college, Debbie worked with legendary Blues guitarist Bill Harris regularly. It was through that exposure that she was hired to sing at the famed Charlie’s of Georgetown, the Jazz club whose stage regularly hosted top tier performers such as Sarah Vaughn, Carmen McRae, Rosemary Clooney, George Shearing, Mel Tormé and Nancy Wilson, who would become a mentor and friend. That became Debbie’s main performance venue billing her five nights a week while earning her music degree.

Upon completing her degree, Debbie boarded a plane to tour six countries singing in a band that performed for all branches of the military. The tour was a USO tour sponsored by the DOD. While in Italy Debbie connected with a writer and producer from the US that would offer her work as a demo singer on different recording projects.
This experience led to her singing with Kenny Rogers, closing the Dove Awards with her single in 1986 and eventually recording her own music that would launch her into the music industry as a solo artist. In 1997 Debbie recorded her first studio album “Debbie Kirkland In Session. This album was the launch of her career as a solid jazz, pop-jazz vocalist. The record was added to playlists of mainstream radio across the country and abroad with contemporary, straight ahead and urban R&B stations playing its tracks. Debbie has shared the stage with some of the great names in music including George Duke, Marcus Miller, Chuck Mangione, Pieces of a Dream, Lala Hathaway, Chaka Kahn and Lonnie Liston Smith. As a seasoned performer, Kirkland has appeared on BET Black Entertainment Television’s “BET on Jazz” and has performed at the Kennedy Center of Performing Arts, The East Coast Jazz Fest, the prestigious Capitol Jazz Fest at the Meriwether Post Pavilion, The Carter Barron Amphitheater and the renowned Washington, DC Jazz club Blues Alley.

While Debbie enjoys sharing her music through performing, she always had a desire to create opportunities in the music industry to help other performers/artists. She created her first businesses in 1994, a production company, a record label and a booking agency. As a response to the devastating Hurricane Katrina she created a non-profit organization named Art With Heart. Its mission was to raise funds for other non-profits doing charitable work in needed communities. All proceeds were donated to help with their individual causes.
Debbie has found a true love for teaching and using her vast opportunities, experiences and career to lift aspiring vocalists and performers to reach their dreams in the music industry.

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Debbie Kirkland Adjunct Instructor Performing Arts

Teaching

Fall 2024

Spring 2025