EJ Couloucoundis, Vocalist

EJ Couloucoundis is a 17 year-old vocalist whose musical talents were first discovered at the age of 11, when a friend of the family, well versed in the performing arts noticed his remarkable strong, clear notes, and his ability to sing pitch perfect renditions of songs by such artists as Josh Groban by simply hearing the recordings. Soon after that, EJ began to train with respected New York Vocal Coach, Boris Buriev, and just after his 14th birthday, he took his native town of Darien, Connecticut by storm when he performed at a local talent show, singing “The Impossible Dream” from the musical, “Man of La Mancha”. Soon thereafter, EJ began to sing at numerous New York area public events and charity concerts including Virginia’s House of Hope’s 2009 concert event at Carnegie Hall. His voice has developed into a strong bass-baritone, and his musical tastes have expanded to include big band jazz, Broadway selections, and classical repertoire.

At the age of 15, he auditioned for and was accepted into the Mannes College of Music pre-college vocal program as their only male vocal major that year and spent two years there honing his skills. The classical training worked to expand his range and to develop an unusually mature baritone voice, seldom heard amongst his contemporaries. At 16, EJ was a winner at the Classical Singer Magazine regional high school competition, something he succeeded in doing both in 2010 and 2011. At the same time, while pursuing classical training, he entered and won the 2010 National High School Teen Idol event by singing an updated version of the jazz classic, “Cry Me a River”, only 3 weeks after winning the Classical Singer Magazine regional competition. Soon thereafter, he won the national teen title for Talent America in 2010, competing against actors, singers and dancers doing contemporary monologues, music and dance themes. Most recently, EJ won the Musical Club of Hartford’s 2011 classical voice competition for high school students.

EJ has continued to hone his singing skills, auditioning for and being accepted to study with famed voice teachers, Mark Oswald, of the Manhattan School of Music, and Dan Marek of Mannes College of Music, both extremely successful soloists at the CONTACT _Con-36750A5F3BF Metropolitan Opera for many years. While his training is classical, EJ has wide ranging musical tastes, and his vocal capabilities span Pop, Jazz, Broadway, and Classical genres at any given time. He is capable of singing in English, Spanish, Italian, German, and Greek. He just recently finished recording a contemporary version of the Spanish song, “So Close to Me (Abråzame)” originally written by famed Spanish singer, Julio Iglesias in both English and Spanish, slated to go on sale in the near future.

This past summer, EJ performed as the Pirate King in the Oklahoma City University’s summer vocal program production of “Pirates of Penzance”. During his present senior year of high school, he is studying at Manhattan School of Music’s pre-college vocal program to further his vocal training and intends to pursue vocal performance in college. A special thanks to Mr. Clay Maitland and Mr. Antonio Litman for giving him an opportunity to sing at and support Virginia’s House of Hope.