Courtesy of Charity Sunshine Tillemann-Dick

Curiosity Expert: Charity Sunshine Tillemann-Dick

Soprano, Composer, Presenter at Freelance

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Charity Sunshine Tillemann-Dick is an American-born soprano and a recipient of a double lung transplant. Charity has performed across the United States, Europe and Asia in venues as diverse as the Rose Theater in New York City; The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.; Severance Hall in Cleveland, Ohio; Il Giardino Di Boboli in Florence, Italy; the National Palace of the Arts in Budapest, Hungary; the Tel Aviv Opera House in Israel; the American Embassy in Beijing, China; the United Nations in New York; and National Statuary Hall in the United States Capitol. She has collaborated and performed with noted conductors and musicians including Eva Marton, Bruno Rigacci, Joela Jones, Marvin Hamlisch, Bono, Zoltan Kocis, Joan Dornemann, and former Secretary of State Dr. Condoleezza Rice. Some of her operatic roles have included Titania in A Mid Summer's Night Dream, Gilda in Rigoletto, Violetta in La Traviata, and Ophelia in Ophelia Forever. Charity has also performed for numerous presidents, prime ministers, members of Congress and world dignitaries.

After receiving a diagnosis of Idiopathic Pulmonary Hypertension in 2004, Charity served as the national spokesperson for the Pulmonary Hypertension Association, working to raise awareness, increase federal research funding, expand stem cell research, and promote preventive and alternative medicine. In September of 2009, Charity received a bilateral lung transplant at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio.

Since receiving the transplant, Charity has shared her amazing story and vocal talents at numerous conferences and events, including: TEDMED 2010 in San Diego, CA; the 6th National Learning Congress on Organ Donation in Dallas, Texas, and the 2010 Empathy and Innovation Summit in Cleveland, Ohio. Charity has been featured on CNN with Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Glamour Magazine, ABCNews.com, TED.com, the Huffington Post, The Wall Street Journal Health Blog, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the San Francisco Chronicle, and The Sunday Times (London). Her performances have been broadcast around the world on CNN, BBC, FOX, MSNBC, PBS, C-SPAN and NPR.

Charity received a Bachelor's degree with high honors from Regis University in Denver, Colorado, where she was raised with her 10 brothers and sisters. She later studied music at the Peabody Conservatory at Johns Hopkins University and the Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest. She currently resides in Washington, D.C. and New York City.