When Frost School of Music alumna Raquel Sofia was a teenager contemplating different career pathways, she had several in mind. Journalism was one she thought she might pursue while waiting to see if the Frost School of Music would admit her. But on some level, she knew that anything but a life in music would have been settling.
“One of the blessings we musicians have is not having to worry about what we want to be,” she says. “Everyone else is trying to decide about careers and what to do, but we already just know. I have always wanted to be a singer for as long as I can remember. As a kid, I loved the attention and applause and always wanted to be onstage. I never wanted to be anything else.”
Born and raised in Puerto Rico, Sofia caught the performing bug early, writing poems by age 10 and making her first live performances a few years later. Her tastes back then ran to the likes of The Beatles and Bob Marley, which got her into songwriting and discovering jazz at age 15. Coming to the Frost School at age 18, where she earned a Bachelor of Music degree in 2009, proved transformative.
“Being at the Frost School was one of the most important chapters of my life,” she says. “The biggest impact was being immersed in this world where you’re no longer the weird kid who likes Ella Fitzgerald, because everybody else there is like that, too. And it also made me not just a singer but a musician. I know harmony, sight-reading, writing, and telling the band what I want. Training at the Frost School prepared me to be a well-rounded musician.”
After graduation, Sofia says she did “the first thing everybody does in Miami, the wedding and party circuit.” In a city that is a center of the Latin music industry, that naturally led to “the second thing,” becoming a backup singer. Sofia spent three years on the road with multi-platinum pop superstars Juanes and Shakira, which proved to be a great way to see the world. It also opened the door for her own career writing songs for other acts, Juanes and Puerto Rican pop-salsa star Víctor Manuelle among them. She also opened for the multi-Grammy-winning Juanes on tour.
Signing to Sony, Sofia released her debut album “Te Quiero Los Domingos” (“I Love You on Sundays”) in 2015. “Domingos” topped the iTunes Latin music chart and earned her a Latin Grammy nomination for Best New Artist, a spot on the awards broadcast, and a deluge of attention. Her fifth album, “Llorando en una bici” (“Crying on a Bicycle”), will be released on March 27.
Touring for that record and performing in a music theater show in Mexico City, where Sofia lives nowadays, will keep her busy into 2026. She might even find time for a few more backup-singer gigs, too.
“I hadn’t done it in 10 years, but I just got called to do an emergency backup gig for Mónica Naranjo,” she says. “They needed someone super-fast, so I said sure. It wasn’t the usual singer-songwriter thing I do now, but to hang out on a tour bus with many other musicians is always super-fun.”
