Octavia McAloon is a songwriter, soprano, conductor, and composer,
living life through song.
Vocalist, Songspinner.
Octavia McAloon is a captivating singer-songwriter and classical musician based in Bellingham, WA. With intricate fingerpicking and velvety vocals, she weaves together songs that draw listeners in. Set to soothing nylon strings, her lyrics tend towards natural influences, otherworldly mystery, and emotive tales of the human experience.
Stylistically, Octavia works towards bridging the gap between her folk and classical backgrounds; the music she produces is always steeped in vocal harmonies and atmospheric textures. In live performance, she lets the intimate pairing of guitar and eloquent lyrics take the lead.
Octavia’s debut album, With Breath of Wind (2020) and her sophomore concept-album, Skybound (2023), are available on all streaming platforms.
Classically-trained versatility
Octavia McAloon is a classical-trained soprano and conductor based in Seattle, WA. While working towards her B.M. in Vocal Performance from Cornish College of the Arts, she began working as a music educator, church musician, conductor, and specialist in contemporary music for vocal ensembles. Her passion for conducting led her to earn her M.M in Choral Conducting from the Yale School of Music and program certificate from the Yale Institute of Sacred Music. While living in Connecticut, she worked with numerous ensembles as a soprano, soloist, conductor, and recording artist, and her work at this time included international tours, awards for achievement in church music, and performances and study with acclaimed conductors such as Masaaki Suzuki, Marin Alsop, Grete Pedersen, David Hill, and primary study with Marguerite Brooks and Jeffrey Douma.
After returning to her beloved home state of Washington, Octavia worked as assistant conductor and featured soloist of the Seattle new music ensemble, The Esoterics, with whom she had performed since 2010. Though the pandemic minimized her work with in-person ensembles, she was still involved with many recording projects and compositions and arrangements for this new format of vocal music. She currently sings with the Bellingham Chambe Chorale.
Outside of the classical field, Octavia works as a folk singer-songwriter, with a growing recorded output. Her debut album, With Breath of Wind, was released in April 2020 and is available on all streaming platforms. Her sophomore album Skybound was released on January 13th, 2023. Skybound is a folk opera concept album that tells a tale of dark forests, old magic, and celestial storylines. You can also hear Octavia stream live music three times a week on Twitch as 8via. When she’s not busy with those roles, she prefers to slip deep into the quiet of the woods, forgetting there was ever such a thing as a screen.
