Opera on Ice

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In mid-March, mezzo-soprano Alicia Hall Moran ’95 took center stage to sing a song from the musical The Wiz. The twist? She did so while gliding across the ice. The performance took place at the annual ice show hosted by the nonprofit Figure Skating in Harlem, which is the first of its kind to combine access to figure skating with education and leadership development for girls of color.

Moran Hall, a celebrated opera singer, premiered her first skating show in 2016 at National Sawdust, a women-led venue in Brooklyn, but the world of cold-weather athletics and singing are not new for Hall Moran, who practiced both, albeit separately, throughout her high school years in Stamford, Connecticut. She was a member of an off-campus synchronized ice skating team and performed with her school’s advanced chamber ensemble, the Westhill Chamber Singers. Hall Moran went on to earn two bachelor’s degrees: one in music from Barnard and another, after graduation, in classical vocal performance from the Manhattan School of Music.

Since graduating from Barnard, Hall Moran has shown how best to make use of her creative time, from her 2012 Broadway debut in the Tony-winning revival of The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess to collaborations with artists like Carrie Mae Weems — not to mention her performance in Breaking Ice, which is about the U.S. figure skater Debi Thomas’ rivalry with East Germany’s Katarina Witt.

This spring, Moran was recognized by Figure Skating in Harlem for her work as a volunteer skating instructor. “I feel a sense of responsibility and excitement about keeping two trains running,” says the singer and figure skater. “If you’re a Black woman and you say that you sing, nobody’s shocked; there’s no resistance.” But say that you’re a Black woman who sings beautifully while ice skating, and people pay attention. 

Whether she is performing off the ice or performing on skates with a musical quartet backing her up, Hall Moran has places to go and audiences who can’t wait to see what’s next.