SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Tiara Abraham began taking community college classes at 7 years old.
In May, the Sacramento native got her master of music in voice performance at 18 from the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University. Abraham plans to continue there to obtain her doctorate.
“Typically, the doctorate degree for performance majors, especially at Indiana University… it can take up to like five or six years just because there's a lot of coursework, and they also require the students to take additional minors,” Abraham told ABC10. “I'm aiming for around three and a half years.”
Abraham was homeschooled until she graduated high school at 13. She transferred to the University of California, Davis, as a junior in fall 2020 during the pandemic, when everything was online.
“I finally graduated from UC Davis with a bachelor of arts in music in 2022 as a 16-year-old,” she said.
Then, she made the trek to Indiana for graduate school. Abraham’s mother, Taji, rented an apartment with her so she didn’t have to brave a new town across the country alone.
“We’ve had our fair sense of adventures in the Midwest,” Taji Abraham said. “We have enjoyed the snow and the fall…it’s different from California. We miss California.”
Abraham’s brother, Tanishq, graduated with his Ph.D. in biomedical engineering at age 19 from UC Davis in June 2023. He works in medical artificial intelligence (AI) research applying AI to various medical applications, radiology and neuroscience.
Abraham said she wants to perform around the world as an opera singer once she obtains her doctorate in Indiana. She also wants to perform as a mainstage artist at an established opera house.
“Eventually, I do see myself also teaching voice, having my own studio or even joining a university or conservatory setting and having my own studio there,” she said.
She said what she’s accomplished comes with a lot of hard work and challenges.
“Being young as a classical vocalist, especially, is not necessarily seen so positive initially,” she said. “When you see online child opera singers like on these talent shows or going viral…a lot of the times these are child singers that are imitating the sound of an opera singer without technique or training. When people hear me, that I'm also singing opera, they immediately think that I'm one of those child opera singers, but I've been taking voice lessons since I was 7 years old.”
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