Afton Mancini

Hailing from Tulsa, Oklahoma, Afton moved to Los Angeles in 2006 to pursue a career in music. She spent her first five years in California as a production manager, audio technician, and later, a brief backing vocalist for the band, Tears For Fears, on tour around the world. While not on the road, she built a healthy roster of private music students and sang with the Pasadena Pro Musica choir for four seasons. She served as the general music education teacher at Glendale Montessori Elementary School from 2012 until the school's closure in the Fall of 2013. Later that year, under the pen-name Sangster, she released a five-song EP of original music titled “Human Becoming”, for which she played many live shows to support. The following two years saw her performing primarily in jazz settings, often with her husband, jazz vibraphonist Nick Mancini, at various venues and concert series. That summer, Afton was the sole vocalist on a record of original chamber music by flutist and composer, Leah Paul, called "We Will Do The Worrying," which received positive reviews by the LA Times and WNYC. Also in 2015, she became an active member and soloist in Pasadena Master Chorale (now Pasadena Chorale). She worked as a professional Christmas caroler from 2015 through 2017, singing in quartets all around Southern California during the holiday season in full Dickensian garb. In the Fall semester of 2016, Afton became the vocal music specialist at Vista Del Mar School in Cheviot Hills, coaching the students for their holiday concert and productions. In the fall of 2017, she became the new soprano section leader and soloist at the historic St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Glendale, CA. In the Fall of 2018, she was hired by Pasadena Master Chorale to conduct over 200 Pasadena area students from 5 different middle schools for their annual Choral Festival hosted by PMC, where at also PMC and the PUSD high schools performed. In addition to her job at St. Mark's, Afton occasionally appeared as a guest soloist and ringer for various churches and synagogues in Los Angeles. In the Fall of 2019, she and Nick welcomed their first child, a daughter named Minerva, and they, three cats and all, after 14 years, eventually moved back to her hometown of Tulsa in May of 2020, due mainly in part to the pandemic. Quickly upon arriving, she was hired as the new Soprano soloist and section leader at the historic Holy Family Cathedral in downtown Tulsa, and worked on building a new vocal studio, slowly but surely. As of September of 2021, Afton has been a staff Soprano with the renowned Chamber Singers at Saint John’s Episcopal Church in Tulsa and also a Soprano for the Oklahoma Bach Choir with director Joseph Arndt. In January of 2023, she and Nick welcomed their second child, a son named Maximilian “Max”, who was born with a severe congenital heart defect called hypoplastic left heart syndrome. He has had two of three open heart surgeries to bridge him to an eventual heart transplant later in life, and is now home after almost his whole first year spent in the Children’s Hospital in Oklahoma City. Despite all of Max’s medical complexities, Afton is still carrying on, and as of this year, she has formed Tulsa’s first professional Christmas caroling company, The Tulsa Carolers and hopes to have a successful first season.