

About
Dr. Iris Fordjour-Hankins, 2013 second-place winner in the Alltech Vocal Scholarship Competition at the University of Kentucky, completed a Doctor of Musical Arts degree at the University of Kentucky in voice in 2021. As a teacher of voice and voice-related subjects, she is an assistant professor at Oakwood University, adjunct professor at Alabama A&M University and instructor at Valley Conservatory in Huntsville, Alabama. Previously, she taught vocal music for the Detroit Public Schools and believes the 15-year experience has become the bedrock of her skill as a music educator.
Dr. Fordjour-Hankins believes in the power of research and enjoys serving as board secretary for the International Florence Price Festival. PriceFest is dedicated to the advancement of Price’s music through performance, scholarship, leadership, advocacy, and awards. She is dedicated to the promotion of new, newly-discovered, and under-performed music of black composers. She joins the cadre of others pushing to see these works added to the mainstream canon in the field of classical music, specifically for classically trained singers. Her scholarship was awarded funding through Oakwood University (2023) to continue developing her dissertation, Shining a Spotlight on Female African American Composer Evelyn Simpson-Curenton (2021). It is her part in the role in the effort to educate people about the beauty, elegance, and high level of craftsmanship poured into Simpson-Curenton’s music for classically trained vocalists. In it she explores Simpson-Curenton’s work as a composer and her approach to arranging and performing spirituals and hymns. Iris understands the relevance of Simpson-Curenton’s music for classically trained soloists in this post-covid generation. Her work is gaining traction in the area of research, giving Iris opportunities to present it in the form of a one-hour lecture-recital. Her program has been presented to Oakwood University’s Research and Development Symposium (May 2023), The New Canon Chamber Collective (Sept 2023), the University of Texas Permian Basin (Feb 2022), and soon to come presentations with Opera Philadelphia in collaboration with the International Florence Price Festival (Feb 2024), and Tennessee State University in alliance with their partners at the Burleigh Legacy Alliance (April 2024).
As a classically trained soprano, Dr. Iris Fordjour-Hankins is a soloist, recitalist, teacher, masterclass technician, coach, and choral director. Her repertoire includes the works of Strauss, Verdi, Puccini, Handel, Gounod, Mozart, Wagner, Beethoven, and Bellini. Her performances include the role of the Mother in Menotti's Amahl and the Night Visitors with Opera Huntsville (2023) and University of Kentucky (2016); "Es gibt ein reich" from Strauss' Ariadne of Naxos (2021); and Fr. Eduard Perrone’s mass entitled Missa-Fountain of Beauty (2013). The composer wrote it with Iris’ classically trained soprano voice in mind. It premiered at the historic Assumption Grotto Catholic Church in Detroit. Dr. Fordjour-Hankins has sung as an ambassador for the University of Kentucky and Alltech in both the U.S. and China with the mission of singing music that encourages rich cultural exchanges amongst classical singers, spreads goodwill and builds pathways of friendship and collaboration in the musical arts, music education and business. In December 2017, she gave a recital in Kingston, Jamaica as part of a program where of a Dr. Andrew Marshall’s newly composed patois oratorio based on the Jamaican Bible. Iris is married to Ernest Hankins, III. They have two children, Iman Isabella and Ernest, IV (EJ). She considers her family to be her greatest accomplishment.