Tenor Limmie Pulliam, Who Sang on Stages Worldwide, Dies at 50

Gifted singer became a regular presence on the Oberlin campus where he honed his craft.

Communications Staff

Limmie Pulliam, in an October 2022 preview performance of "The Ordering of Moses" with the Oberlin Orchestra and Oberlin choirs in Finney Chapel. The following month, the musicians presented the work at Carnegie Hall. Photo: Yevhan Gulenko

Dramatic tenor Limmie Pulliam, a 1998 graduate of Oberlin Conservatory who gave life to a host of leading opera roles and as a classical soloist on prominent stages across America and around the globe—and whose unlikely rise to fame after years away from music buoyed the dreams of performers everywhere—has died. He was 50.

Last week, Pulliam had been the tenor soloist in the Dallas Symphony Orchestra’s performances of Mahler’s Symphony No. 8.

Raised in Kennett, Missouri, Pulliam, the son of a preacher, grew up singing in his church choir before his passion for classical music took shape. At Oberlin, he was a student of the legendary voice professor Richard Miller, who played a vital role in developing Pulliam’s remarkably powerful sound.

Soon after graduating, however, Pulliam found himself disillusioned over concerns related to his weight and the audition rejections and body shaming he was subjected to as a result of it. For 12 years, he pursued work as a debt collector and security guard—even operating his own security business. For most of that time, he seldom even thought of music, let alone sang.

Pulliam’s rediscovery of his own voice came in the unlikeliest of ways: While working as an organizer for Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign in Missouri, he was invited to sing the National Anthem when the scheduled singer backed out.

The performance, and several others that followed, signaled to Pulliam that his voice had matured and grown in size in the years since his Oberlin training. It reignited his interest in exploring where he might go with it. His formal return to the stage happened at age 36, with a performance in the National Opera Association’s vocal competition. 

In November 2024, Pulliam discussed his career trajectory with Oberlin President Carmen Twillie Ambar on the Running to the Noise podcast. In it, he revealed how he revisited old videotapes of his sessions with Professor Miller.

"It was almost like riding a bicycle," he recalled. "As I began to work with the tapes, the coordination began to come back."

Limmie Pulliam performing the title role in The Ordering of Moses with the Oberlin Orchestra and Oberlin choirs at Carnegie Hall in January 2023. Photo: Fadi Kheir

 As Pulliam’s career resurgence took shape, so did his involvement with Oberlin, where he delighted in working with students on projects and in rehearsals.

His on-campus collaborations included singing the title role in The Ordering of Moses, an opera penned by 1908 Oberlin alum R. Nathaniel Dett. The work, performed by the Oberlin Orchestra and Oberlin choirs in January 2023, marked Pulliam’s Carnegie Hall debut.

The previous month, he had made his Metropolitan Opera debut as Radamès in Verdi’s Aida. He was the first Black singer in the history of the Met to perform the role.

Also in 2023, Pulliam debuted with the Cleveland Orchestra in the title role of a semi-staged production of Verdi’s Otello.

“He has an amazing voice,” Cleveland Orchestra Music Director Franz Welser-Möst said in an interview with cleveland.com. “I’ve not heard a better Otello in a very long time. He really is quite something."

Within days of Pulliam’s Carnegie Hall premiere, he was featured in a New York Times story with the headline “He Quit Singing Because of Body Shaming. Now He’s Making a Comeback.” 

Former First Lady Michelle Obama called out Pulliam on Facebook in February 2023, recalling his initial performance on her husband’s campaign and his spate of debut performances. “Limmie, I’m so proud of you,” she wrote. “Your story is incredible and I hope you know how much you are inspiring people to never give up on their dreams.”

In 2024, Pulliam was one of several Oberlin contemporaries who reunited for a collaborative concert production of Omar, the Pulitzer Prize-winning opera by Rhiannon Giddens ’01 and Michael Abels. He sang the title role alongside his longtime friends and collaborators Giddens, bass-baritone Daniel Okulitch ’98, and baritone Michael Preacely ’01. Another prominent Oberlin alum, John Kennedy ’82, conducted the performance. Pulliam and Giddens spoke with NPR about the experience of returning to campus to perform the opera.

Pulliam performing the title role in Rhiannon Giddens' 'Omar' in Finney Chapel in December 2024.
Photo: Mike Crupi

Pulliam derived great joy from his work with Oberlin students, and he offered them a word of support in his podcast conversation with Ambar.

“Don’t be afraid to face your fears, to step out of your comfort zone, to be persistent in your work, to be consistent in your work, and don’t let a no deter you from continuing to push forward,” he said.

“It’s up to us to take control of our own destinies and to define ourselves, as opposed to allowing other people to define us.”

In October 2025, Oberlin students attended Pulliam’s performance as soloist in Mahler's Song of the Earth with the Cleveland Orchestra, after which the orchestra hosted a reception for Pulliam and his Oberlin guests. In February of this year, a busload of Oberlin students experienced Pulliam’s performance in Turandot at Detroit Music Hall.

Most recently, Pulliam returned to campus to honor the late Daune Mahy, a longtime voice professor whom the conservatory celebrated with a memorial concert in early March. Pulliam sang Richard Strauss’ Zueignung (von Gilm).

“Limmie was an extraordinary, powerful artist,” says Dean of the Conservatory William Quillen. “Even more, he was a deeply good, kind-hearted, funny, brilliant, and generous colleague and friend who transformed the lives of everyone he met. His performances with our students were life-changing for all involved. On behalf of everyone at Oberlin, we send deepest condolences to Limmie's family, friends, classmates, and loved ones. He was a remarkable artist, and we will miss him greatly.”

In his podcast conversation, Pulliam’s reaction to achieving notoriety later in life was a fitting example of that big-hearted generosity. “I hope [my story] inspired others to just really know not to ever give up on their dreams,” he said.

First published at Oberlin, May 20, 2026

Related article: Tenor Limmie Pulliam makes his Florida Grand Opera debut

Six Artists Vie to Design Billie Holiday Monument in New York

The public is invited to weigh in on proposals submitted by artists including Thomas J. Price and Tavares Strachan.

Nekisha Durrett, Bending the Note artwork proposal. Photo courtesy of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.

by Richard Whiddington May 19, 2026

In the late 1920s, Eleanora Fagan left Baltimore for New York City, singing to dive bars in the outer boroughs. Within a couple of years, she had changed her name to Billie Holiday and was cutting jazz records with the likes of Teddy Wilson and Benny Goodman.

Now, the borough of Queens, which heard Holiday’s haunting voice early on and became her on-and-off home in the 1950s, is commissioning a public monument to the singer outside the Jamaica Performing Arts Center.

Billie Holiday. Photo by William P. Gottlieb / Ira and Leonore S. Gershwin Fund Collection,
Music Division, Library of Congress.

On May 19, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs released the proposals of its six finalists and invited the public to review and comment on the designs. The feedback period will run through the end of May, with the selection panel set to choose its final design later in the year.

The finalists are La Vaughn Belle, Nikesha Breeze, Nekisha Durrett, Tanda Francis, Thomas J. Price, and Tavares Strachan. After responding to an open call put out in late 2025, all six finalists participated in a site visit as well as discussions with Holiday scholars and family members.

Nikesha Breeze, Lady Sings the Truth: A Monument to Billie Holiday artwork proposal.
Photo courtesy of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.

Breeze’s proposal offers an image of Holiday mid-performance, her hands clasped to her chest, with white marble gardenias in her hair. Its base bears the engraving, “Sing the Truth.” Durrett’s Bending the Note, meanwhile, is a white marble carving based on the singer’s profile, which glides upward revealing to reveal a gold underside. A rendering of Holiday’s beloved pooch Pepe sits at the base of the statue, gazing upward.

Strachan, who represented Bahamas at the 55th Venice Biennale and previously cast a monumental sculpture critiquing colonialism outside London’s Royal Academy, is taking a minimalist approach. His proposal offers Holiday’s silhouette in the form of a white vessel, one the artist calls a “container for memory.”

Thomas J. Price, Held Within artwork proposal. Photo courtesy of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.

Price, a British sculptor whose work recently inaugurated V&A East, presents two sleek bronze beans resting against one another on a plinth. Drawing off a photograph of Holiday cuddling with a beloved dog, Price hopes to create a portrait of authentic joy.

The other proposals approach the subject in a more conventionally representative way. Belle suggests a larger-than-life Holiday sat at the edge of a reflecting pool and enjoying some calm, offering what the artist calls “a pre-stage moment.” Davis proposes a large rendering of the musician’s head, with gardenia petals spiraling from her crown into a pond lined with blood red tiles—a nod to “Strange Fruit,” a protest song made famous by Holiday.

Tanda Francis, Blood at the Root artwork proposal.
Photo courtesy of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.

The project is being funded by Percent for Art program, which since 1982 has ensured that one percent of New York City’s construction project budget is spent on public artworks.

“Honoring her here in Queens, where she lived, performed, and contributed to the cultural life of the borough, makes this project especially meaningful,” Nantasha Williams, who represents New York’s 27th district, said in a statement. “This monument is an opportunity to create a lasting cultural landmark that connects residents and visitors alike to the history, creativity, and influence rooted in Queens.”

First published at Artnet, May 19, 2026