Since its inception, the George Shirley Vocal competition (GSVC) was created to educate and focus on African American repertoire written by African American composers. I have served as creative director on this project since its launch in 2010, providing overall branding guidance, account management, and digital content cultivation for the web and social media. I lead a team of videographers and photographers each year to accomplish these tasks and capture content for the competition’s archives and fundraising efforts.

Over the course of ten years, the competition grew from one high school division—pulling local talent from around Detriot, MI—to five divisions including high schools, colleges, pre-professionals, and composers both nationally and internationally.

With the help of a small team, we reimagined and rebuilt the infrastructure of this competition to offer it virtually in 2020 and in a hybrid format in 2021.