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About
MICHE BRADEN is a singer, actor, musician, songwriter, arranger, & musical director. She is a product of the rich musical heritage of her hometown, Detroit, Michigan. In Detroit she was the founder & former lead singer of Straight Ahead (women‘s jazz band), & was a protege` of Motown musicians Thomas “Beans” Bowles, Earl Van Dyke (leader of The Funk Brothers), and Jazz Master Composer Harold McKinney.
Miche’s most recent endeavor was a very successful tour in Belgium & France with GOSPELS 4 LIFE with Musical Director and Singer Sabine Kouli for the Damien Foundation. She also had a successful run of her one woman show, “THE DEVIL’S MUSIC: The Life and Blues of Bessie Smith” for The Passage Theater in Trenton, NJ fall of 2007. Miche plays the lead and is Musical Director/Arranger in collaboration with director Joe Brancato and playwright Angelo Parra. The show receives rave reviews whenever and wherever it is performed. It placed third in THE DAILY NEWS Top Ten Off Broadway shows for 2001. She was also nominated for the coveted Carbonell Award for 2001 in Florida & the Connecticut Critics Award in 2003. The show is being moved in to to Cape Cod, Massachusetts the summer of 2008 and plans are being made for a revival in Manhattan in the very near future.
Miche has portrayed even more of the greatest Divas of the 20th Century. Billie Holiday in “LADY DAY AT EMERSON’S BAR & GRILL”, Valaida Snow in HOT SNOW, & Ma Rainey in “MA RAINEY’S BLACK BOTTOM. She served as MD & actor in Hartford Stage’s recent production of MAHALIA: A Gospel Musical starring American Idol finalist & Broadway Diva Frenchie Davis. Miche also portrayed Duchess DeLovely in the original cast of HATS: The Red Hat Society Musical which had its debut at the Denver Civic Theater Fall 2006. She is also Musical Director& Choral Arranger of THE PEOPLE’S TEMPLE by Leigh Fondakowski (Laramie Project). She will be returning to Hartford Stage to portray Momma in “THE BLUEST EYE” by Toni Morrison adapted by Lydia Diamond for the stage.
Miche is featured on the James Carter release Gardenia’s For Lady DAY (Sony/Columbia 2003) & performed with him at Carnegie Hall April 2007. She has worked with Regina Carter, Milt Hinton, Lionel Hampton, Leon Thomas, & Eddie Harris.
Miche is Artistic/Musical director and Founder of The Performance Art Chorale AKA The PAC, Vice President, Artist, and Musical Director of PMP RECORDS & ENTERPRISE where she is currently promoting her own CD, “DIVA OUT OF BOUNDS, Ms. MICHE. She is the former Minister of Music of Unity Fellowship Church New Brunswick.
Miche toured Japan from 1994 thru 2003 performing in a series of jazz concerts and teaching gospel workshops with Jazz saxophonist MASA. She was a featured artist in Osaka, Japan’s first INTERNATIONAL WOMYN’S JAZZ FESTIVAL 2002 & was a contributing writer for the Human Rights Coalition of Osaka’s newsletter, “NINGEN” (Human).
Additional accomplishments include being the winner of Washington Mutual’s BIG SHOT ON BROADWAY. Called Joel’s Piano Woman by Fox 5 News in New York, her prize was replacing the star MICHAEL CAVANAUGH in singing & playing the finale “NEW YORK STATE OF MIND” in the Broadway show “MOVIN’ OUT”.



Miche Braden







