Esera Tuaolo
Weyerhauser Auditorium 5 p.m.
Aloha! I am Esera Tuaolo. I was born in Honolulu and now reside in Minneapolis. I played nine years in the National Football League for the Green Bay Packers, Minnesota Vikings, Jacksonville Jaguars, Atlanta Falcons (1998 Super Bowl contender), and Carolina Panthers. I was the first rookie in NFL history to start all 16 games my first year earning me a spot on the All Rookie team in 1991. I also recorded the last tackle of football legend John Elway.
One of my most memorable moments in the NFL was when I was asked to sing the National Anthem on a national televised Thursday night game against the Chicago Bears. As my knees buckled and I walked out to the middle of the field to sing in front of 80,000 screaming fans, my saving grace was that I started on pitch. I was asked to sing the national anthem before a game while on each of the five NFL teams for which I played. In 1996 I was asked to participate in a project that paired NFL stars with national recording artists to produce two albums, NFL Country and NFL Jam. I was paired with Ritchie Rich from the Dog Pound production and Jizsum from the Whoo Tang Clan, as well as Lari White and Bryan White. My first album, self-titled ESERA (available on iTunes), is a very eclectic album that draws from Pop, Pop Rock, R&B, and Hip Hop. It brings a whole different vibe to today's ever-changing music industry and gives you a flavor of my Samoan heritage. The songs are heartfelt and bursting with inner passion that has been building up for years. I worked with producer and song-writer David Kellogg for this project, which will hopefully help to break the stereotype that football players cannot sing.
Zosha Warpeha (violin) recalls that her interest in music and jazz started at home when she “begged my parents for 3 years to let me learn violin-- they gave in at the age of 7.” Zosha (16) attended Princeton High School through 10
th grade and is now attending the Perpich Center for the Arts as a resident student. Although her first love is violin, Zosha also plays piano, bass and oboe in school bands; she has played violin in the Minnesota Youth Symphony, the St. Cloud Symphony, Dakota Combo, and plays “a mix of bluegrass, folk, rock, and jazz--all at the same time” in a band called The String Chickens, based in Princeton.