Celisse Henderson

"When you listen to Celisse sing your soul focuses in on the truest places within you. More than just a singer/songwriter, she weaves melodies and rhythms like a soothsayer, a kind prophet, inviting you to come and sit with her for as long as your heart needs to listen..."
~Matt Alber-Grammy Award Nominated Recording Artist

Celisse Henderson never really fit in anywhere. Born in Oakland, CA but raised in the Solano and Contra Costa County suburbs, she always seemed to be just a little different than her surroundings. Young, but too old inside to actually feel her age. Female, but too strong and opinionated to fit in with the other soft, gentle girls. Black, but too obsessed with Barbra Streisand to ever be fully accepted by the “homegirls” of her youth. Christian, but too liberal to ever REALLY feel completely holy. Suburban, but too interested in the wiles of city life to ever dig the beauty of a small town. A daughter and a sister, but too isolated and misunderstood in her family to ever really enjoy it. She wrote about all of this in her journals at a young age. It was the only place she felt safe to be herself. After some rough years of adolescence and hard knocks, Celisse realized that another place she did fit in was on stage.

At the tender age of 18, she got her first professional gig performing regularly in San Francisco’s longest running show, BEACH BLANKET BABYLON. She was the youngest cast member ever to be hired in their (at the time) 27 year history! She got the privilege of entertaining sold out houses at Club Fugazi while singing high notes, and balancing large hats on her head. She had even more things to write about in her journal. This year she bought her first guitar. She didn’t know how to play very well, but she picked it up anyway and started to make sounds that sounded good to her. A year into being at Beach Blanket Babylon, she became friends with a guy who just joined the show named Matt. Matt was a singer, and also a composer. He had lots of really cool gadgets in his San Francisco apartment. He would press buttons on these gadgets, you would sing/play into them and “poof”…there was a song! So, one day Celisse decided to share a little thing she had been working on with her friend. She told him, “I don’t write music like you, I just write down my thoughts and stuff, but here is something I have been kinda working on…will you listen?” So, he did. That day, Matt told Celisse she was a singer/songwriter. Celisse was flattered, but didn’t entirely believe him. So, she just went on doing her show at night with the high notes and the big hats but started writing even more in that journal of hers, and with her new guitar.

After a 2 year stint at BBB, she realized that she didn’t entirely fit in there either. There was something missing. So, that summer she moved to New York City to pursue one of her biggest dreams…being in a big Broadway show! You can imagine the things their were to write about in NY, so she took her journal every where she could with her. After 9 trying months of subletting apartments, open singer calls, crashing equity auditions, cleaning houses, walking dogs, and paying for cereal at the grocery store with quarters, she got her big break!

Celisse joined the Broadway National Touring Company of WICKED in April of 2006. She got to travel all over the country in a smash hit show playing one of Galinda the good witch’s best friends Shen-Shen. Dir. By Joe Mantello, Music & Lyrics by Stephen Schwartz, Book by Winnie Holzman. She spent 1 year and 9 months of glorious time with some of the most amazing actors/actresses there ever was! It was a life changing event for her. The more she saw around the world, the more she felt ok being a unique, individual person. She wrote song, after song on this tour….and how could she not? There was so much to see, experience, and tell others about! After almost 2 years of bliss on the road, Celisse decided to the leave the tour of WICKED. She was having an amazing time but she still need to find that missing link.

So, she moved back to NYC in January of 2008. She performed at Carnegie Hall twice that year. She was in Jerry Springer the Opera dir. By Jason Moore, Music Dir. by Stephen Oremus and later that year was a soloist in Bernsteins Mass: with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Dir. by Kevin Newbury and Conducted by Marin Alsop. Bernsteins Mass was also done at Carnegie Hall in addition to the Baltimore Symphony, The Palace Theater and the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. The cast did a live recording which received a Grammy nomination for best Classical Album in 2010!

Celisse also received her first television credits this year. She became a series regular on THE ELECTRIC COMPANY/PBS which opened doors for many more opportunities on camera including 30 ROCK/NBC, WHITE COLLAR/USA, RESCUE ME/FX. So, the year all in all was amazing, yet in still, there was something missing….still…missing.

In 2009,