By DAVID EMANUEL
Staff Writer

The future is looking bright for singer/songwriter and Bowie native Angela Taylor.

She'll be filming for the TV Show "Eclipse Magazine" here in the city tonight, singing original songs from her current album, "Songs for Strong Girls".

The show will air sometime over the next three weeks.

Taylor also has an upcoming concert scheduled for Aug. 23 at Brooklyn Park (near Glen Burnie).

Taylor, an Eleanor Roosevelt High School graduate, still has close ties to Bowie.

Her mom, Susan Piatt, lives in the city and remains one of her greatest influences.

Taylor's mother was an aspiring concert pianist and her father a vocalist in the gospel group "The Quarter Tones".

Taylor's family definitely hit many high notes, as Angela's Accomplishments attest to.

She holds three degrees from the Peabody Conservatory of Music and continues as a faculty member an active Alumna. She also serves on the Board of the national Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences, the organization that produces the GRAMMY awards. (In fact, her album is co-produced by GRAMMY winner John Jennings.)

Taylor has been in the spotlight locally and nationally, and has been named Best Female Vocalist by Music Monthly and was also a Lilith Fair finalist.

Taylor describes her original music as "mainstream-appeal alternapop," a "Hi-fi mix of indie pop and alternative style."

"Alternative music these days has more of a connotation of being really hard and edgy. But pop still denotes a 'bubble-gum' sound. I'm kind of in the middle. I'm very accessible," she said. "Plus, there's electric guitar. But I'm not an angry singer, either."

Her current musical influences include Sheryl Crow, Michelle Branch and Fiona Apple.

"Sheryl Crow is probably my favorite right now," she said. "She's just got this incredible talent. Her songs have such emotion, she can play classical piano, she has a great voice, and her lyrics are just as great. She's the whole package. And I aspire to be the whole package just like Sheryl Crow."

But, just in case she doesn't reach the level of superstardom, Taylor does have a Website Design business where she freelances, and also teaches voice and flute. She has also arranged music for a children's TV show.

And she recalls how as a very young child, she wanted to just sing at the top of her lungs - and maybe on TV someday as well.

"I have memories at the age of 3 of standing on top of the furniture with any available 'microphone' in hand," she said.

At that very young age, she even started to play the piano, at first preferring her own 12-tone compositions to the works of the masters.

Later in life, she became proficient in the flute, drums and guitar.

After receiving her Master's degree from Peabody, it was on to several of the country's leading concert hall stages, while she tried to make a living fronting for alternative bands like Lust and Termite, which landed her gigs "in every bar, club and university imaginable," she said.

Now, she is releasing her second CD sometime this summer.

And she's becoming more powerful than ever.

"Female empowerment is definitely the theme of my CD," she said. "It's very important to me. I feel very lucky that today's women have become more empowered than any generation of women before them."