Mary Porter is an international performer, recording artist and North Carolina native. She is no stranger to a stage or to cabaret and has performed sold out shows during her performances in Puerto Vallarta Mexico.  In NYC, she joined Enrique de Allende on stage for his Carnegie Hall debut in 2023 (her second time performing under that legendary roof). Classically trained and with a versatile voice: her range and style allow her to adapt to many types of music. She is currently working with esteemed musical director Michael Orland on her fourth album, produced by multi-Grammy winner, Robert Cutarella who has produced for many artists including Alison Krauss, Eric Clapton, and Sting.  Mary's first three albums were produced by the late Jerry Williams, former music director for "Donny and Marie".

She currently produces a variety of benefit shows featuring performers from different genres, including Broadway stars and Tony and Grammy-award winners. Her shows benefit charities such as The Alzheimer's Association, Good Shepherd Center, Vallarta School for Girls, Feast Gathering, Broadway for a Better World and Vallarta Food Bank.

Mary Porter grew up on a working farm in eastern North Carolina.  One of 5 children in a close-knit family; she learned to drive a tractor before she learned to play the piano. The family farm included hundreds of acres of blueberries and tobacco. To this day, Mary states that she loves the smell of cured tobacco from a barn.....as it meant tobacco season was almost over! Mary learned her work ethics while working on a farm.  As she states, "farm work is hard work, really hard work."

During her years growing up "in the country", Mary learned to play the piano. At age 13, she started playing the piano at her family church and continued playing piano and directing the youth choir until she went to college, graduating from Meredith College in Raleigh NC. 

Somewhere "along the way" she heard and loved classical and Broadway music.  She fell in love with Opera, though didn't realize she had such a gift of singing until she was almost 40. Singing with a group in Smithfield, NC; Mary's vocal training expanded, and she was soon a featured soloist in several concerts with members of the NC Symphony. She also enjoyed theater and was cast as "Julie" in a local production of "Showboat". (A memory she still holds dear as she was living in Smithfield at the time.... the home of the "Ava Gardner Museum". Ava played the role of Julie in movie Showboat.)

Church music greatly shaped Mary Porter to become the performer she is today. She has a way of playing each note or singing each phrase that is very personal.  She contributed to many NC churches with her talents including Dobson Chapel Baptist Church, Warsaw United Methodist Church and several churches in the Smithfield area. Decades later, when Mary moved to St John, USVI, she was known in the Moravian churches there as "Sister Mary" as she played the piano and sang in the choir. Mary had never been to Moravian service, prior to living in St. John and said she felt led to go to the Emmaus Moravian Church her first week there. She found out they had not had anyone at the piano for years prior. The music director said she had prayed and prayed for someone. And along came Mary. She played and sang for many services there.

Mary's creative talents include more than music. She had great success as a fashion designer and in 1985 produced a 40-page full color mail order catalog of her original designs.  She advertised in Vogue and Harper's Bazaar and Town and Country and had clients throughout the US and Canada. This was all before the days of internet websites, and at age 28, this was quite a feat. Decades later, she opened her atelier in Charleston, SC and was a featured designer in the esteemed "Charleston Fashion Week" and was invited on a Lifetime TV show "24 Hour Catwalk".  Mary's mother taught her to sew as a child. To this day, Mary enjoys creating beautiful couture, especially evening and wedding gowns though she finds very little time to do much sewing anymore.

Mary has enjoyed many journeys in her life, including doing a little acting in New York, living in NYC and Hoboken NJ and volunteering during the aftermath of "Superstorm Sandy", having a successful real estate career in the Carolina's, designing beautiful fashions, participating in a few pageants including winning her beloved "Miss Duplin County" title and representing her home county in the Miss North Carolina Pageant in 1976 (at the age of 18), singing at Carnegie Hall, headlining shows Internationally in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico and producing charity benefit shows.

It was Mary's shows in Puerto Vallarta in 2019 that boosted her desire to record and release her first album.....at age 62.  As her daughter reminded her, it's never too late to follow your heart.  She titled her debut album "I Gotta Be Me" because as she says, "the lyrics of that song describe me to a tee".  She boasts that her greatest accomplishment is her daughter, Mary-Margaret Porter.