Leberta Lorál has traveled the world and the musical genres, giving her voice to all.

Soprano Leberta Lorál was born in San Francisco and ended up on the Monterey Peninsula about five months later, when her dad was stationed at Fort Ord. She went on to graduate from Seaside High. Since then, her voice has transported her to many of the world’s greatest stages and orchestras for classical music, both domestic and international – Munich, San Francisco, Sydney, Los Angeles – and the trajectory of her career has been different than most in her field.

Lorál’s core repertoire spans Baroque (Bach’s Mass in B Minor, Handel’s Messiah, Mozart’s Requiem, and Mendelssohn’s Elijah) to contemporary modern works like Frederick Mabalot’s Songs of Rumi, Richard Thompson’s Songs of Passion, and Vaughan Williams’ The First Novel. During her career, Lorál has also taken on operatic roles – Serena in Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, for instance, and the mother in Engelbert Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel.

She can surprise listeners by lending her voice in unexpected settings. Lorál sat in with the Camerata Singers of Monterey County for performances of the Beatitude Mass in 2017, drawing a spectacular response. Most recently she was sighted singing locally with the gospel trio Brown, Sturgis and Brown one Sunday morning at the Monterey Jazz Festival back in September. Lorál still lives in Seaside, and tours internationally.

Weekly: You brought down the house singing gospel at the Jazz Festival. Where did that come from? Did you pick up gospel in the choir at church growing up?

Lorál: I’m not a gospel singer, and at the festival I was just a classical singer singing some gospel. And at the church we went to, First Baptist in Pacific Grove, I sang more hymns and spirituals rather than gospel, per se, as a member of the congregation. Plus I was a piano player then, anyway.

Piano? Did you come from a musical family?

My dad had a beautiful baritone-bass voice, and both he and my sister played piano. I started when I was 6. I also played the flute.

When did you first realize you wanted to be a singer? And what triggered that?

As a music major at Monterey Peninsula College we all had to take these classes called fundamentals about how the sections of the orchestra fit together. There was one on brass, one on strings, one on woodwinds, et cetera.

I decided to take the one on voice, and when the professor, Dr. Harvey Marshall, first heard me sing, he looked at me and he said “My dear, you should be a singer, not a pianist!” From that moment on, I was 100 percent voice. Never took another piano lesson, and never played the flute or piano ever again.

Can you describe a time when music really reached out and grabbed you?

Yes, a couple of times. First, my mom passed away in March 2013, and shortly after that I suddenly couldn’t sing. Not one note for two years. I could talk, but I couldn’t sing with words. When it started to come back, and I could sing again, I realized what a huge part of my life singing was and is.

Second, in 2018 or 2019, something changed for me. I was singing and all of a sudden something just clicked emotionally inside me and I knew then that music had always been meant to be for me. That clicked for me as a woman and mother as well.

Music has been a really great exploration for me, every single day since that day. It felt so liberating, like wow, these amazing sounds can come from me to the world.

You’ve performed in so many different genres. How did all of that come together for you?

Genres? Well, let’s take gospel for example. I tried, but I couldn’t sound that way, so I decided to just be myself and sing the way I sing. Like I said, I am not a gospel singer. I’m a classical singer singing gospel, or opera, or jazz, in my own voice. I choose to sing a melody, any melody, as beautifully as I can, regardless of genre.

The great soprano Leontyne Price once said, “I love the sound of my own voice!” And I do too. When I travel I try to find an empty church and I sing a little spiritual just for me. Like Leontyne, I love to hear that echo back to me. So you can call the music whatever genre you want, but if I can sing it and sing it well, at the end of the day that’s all that matters.