About April plus Madison

Dr. April Lynn James

Award-winning Soprano, Bestselling Author, Wonderland Enthusiast

Affectionately known as The PhDiva, Dr. April is an award-winning soprano with a PhD in Music from Harvard. She is also a storyteller and former professional juggler with a talent for inspiring the young in body and the young at heart.  

Dr. April has sung and recorded with choirs and as a soloist in Europe and the US. She has sung at NY Symphony Space and Unity of Fort Myers, among others, and has had the joy of performing for students across the Northeast, touring with Foodplay and The National Circus Project. Her book, The Tenth Muse: How Maria Antonia Advanced the Pastoral Opera is an international bestseller.

Audiences exclaim:

“We loved your wonderful and whimsical concert. Hope you will come back again.”
“Excellent showmanship!”
“You seamlessly MC between songs with costume changes and lightly playful humor. Absolutely inspired energy!”

Also a Bestselling Author

Dr. April's  “delightfully readable” book, The Tenth Muse: How Maria Antonia Advanced the Pastoral Opera, spent a month at #1 following its debut in August 2023. Available on Amazon and at Dr. April's concerts.

“Everybody has won,
and all must have prizes.”

Lewis Carroll

Selected Awards

Gulf Coast Writers Association Non-Fiction Winner
Lower Manhattan Cultural Council & Creative Capital Artist Summer Institute
NY State Alliance for Arts Education & Association of Teaching Artists Grant
Urban Artist Initiative/NYC, Artist Fellowship
Crittenden Opera Studio Grant
Queens Council on the Arts, Individual Artist Grant
Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst/German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) Fellowship
Woodrow Wilson Foundation Fellowship
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellowship
Goethe-Institut Mannheim Grant
Jewish Foundation for Education of Women Grant

Madison Hatta, Sonneteer

Dr. April did not create Madison; Madison comes through Dr. April. Madison is the guardian angel of Dr. April's sense of humor.  ​

The "Madisonnets" began flowing through Dr. April in the summer of 2011. She plus Madison now have well over 200 with which to delight the ear, eye, heart, and mind. Madison Hatta's Book of Unreasonable Rhymes is available from Moonstone Press (Philadelphia, PA: 2015)

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