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Early years
The youngest of five children, Barbara Smith displayed a love and aptitude for music. As early as age six, Barbara performed with her brother the complicated music of Mozart and traces her musical roots to her family's home in the east Texas community of Center Point. It was here that she and her siblings explored a variety of musical genres on the family piano and in their local Baptist church.[1]
University years
Barbara was admitted into the University of Texas at Austin in 1956. She was part of the first class of African American undergraduate students to attend the university. In 1957 Barbara auditioned for, and was awarded, the leading role in the university's production of the opera, Dido and Aeneas. Her role of Dido, the Queen of Carthage, placed her opposite a white student as Aeneas, her lover.
The casting of Barbara incited a campus-wide controversy that escalated to the Texas legislature. The president of the university was advised to remove her from the cast. Barbara's story was covered by national news media, prompting a carte blanche offer from Harry Belafonte to underwrite her studies at the institution of her choice. Barbara, however, chose to remain at the University of Texas at Austin.[1]
She was one of the early pioneers in the movement to create a more open and diverse university community, and her accomplishments and fortitude as a student represent an important chapter in the university's history. She earned her Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Texas in 1959. After graduation, she joined Equity, the entertainment labor union. Equity already had a Barbara Smith registered. It was at this time that she began using her father's first name, Conrad.[2]
Career
Barbara Smith Conrad has performed leading operatic roles with the Vienna State Opera, Teatro Nacional in Venezuela, the Houston Grand Opera, New York City Opera, Pittsburgh Opera, and many other international opera houses throughout the U.S., Canada, Europe, and South America. She performed with the Metropolitan Opera for eight years, from 1982 to 1989, under the direction of some of the world's leading conductors, including Maazel, Bernstein, and Levine. She has performed much of the mezzo-soprano concert repertoire with the world's greatest orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic and the London, Boston, Cleveland, and Detroit symphonies.[1]
In addition to her operatic stage roles, Barbara played Marian Anderson in the 1977 ABC movie Eleanor and Franklin: The White House Years, and in 1994 followed that performance with a European concert/recital tour commemorating the renowned contralto. In 1987, she was invited by President Reagan to sing at the White House in honor of Lady Bird Johnson's seventy-fifth birthday. A personal highlight for her was an invitation to perform for Pope John Paul II during his 1995 visit to New York City. Among her many other accomplishments is her recording of a collection of Negro spirituals with the choir of the Convent Avenue Baptist Church, released on the Naxos label to critical acclaim.[1]
Today Barbara continues to complement her performing activities with artist residencies and master classes, establishing herself as one of the foremost builders of voice both in the U.S. and abroad. She is the co-director and co-founder of the Wagner Theater Program at the Manhattan School of Music, and maintains a private vocal studio in Manhattan.
Legacy
Graves was born on March 7, 1964, to Charles Graves and Dorothy (Middleton) Graves-Kenner. She is the middle of three children and was raised by her mother on Galveston Street, S.W., in the Bellevue section of Washington.[1] She graduated from the Duke Ellington School of the Arts in 1981. Graves studied voice at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and the New England Conservatory.[2] She worked at the Wolf Trap Opera Company, which provides further training and experience for young singers who are between their academic training and full-time professional careers. Soon after, she was invited by David Gockley to participate in the Houston Opera Studio, from 1988 to 1990, where she studied with Elena Nikolaidi.
Career
She made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera in 1995[1] and has appeared at many opera houses. Though her repertoire is extensive, her signature parts are the title roles in Carmen and Samson et Dalila. On January 20, 2005, she sang the patriotic song "American Anthem" during the 55th Presidential Inauguration, between the swearing-in ceremonies of Vice President Dick Cheney and President George W. Bush for their second terms in office.[3]
Graves sang "America the Beautiful" and "The Lord's Prayer" at the Washington National Cathedral during a memorial service for the victims of 9/11 on September 14, 2001, attended by President Bush, members of Congress, other politicians and representatives of foreign governments.[4]
In 2003, Graves performed in front of a live audience at the Mann Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia for a television special, Denyce Graves: Breaking the Rules. In 2005, she hosted the radio show Voce di Donna (Voice of a Lady) on Vox!, the vocal classical music channel of XM Satellite Radio, on which she interviewed various opera singers. Graves often was heard on The Tony Kornheiser Show radio program with her rendition of the "Mailbag Theme".
She performed the opera Werther with Andrea Bocelli for the Michigan Opera Theatre, the first opera broadcast on the Internet in its entirety in 1999. She is currently an industry panelist on American Idol Underground.
On January 2, 2007, Graves performed "The Lord's Prayer" at the state funeral for Gerald Ford at the Washington National Cathedral.
Graves sang "The Star-Spangled Banner" as part of the pre-game ceremonies inaugurating Nationals Park.
On April 12, 2009, Graves performed a tribute concert to Marian Anderson at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, organized by the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission. In May 2010, Graves performed a concert with tenor Lawrence Brownlee in the United States Supreme Court Building for the Supreme Court justices.[5]
On the evening of September 11, 2011, Graves performed at the "Concert for Hope" at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks. That same year, she appeared as a Pennington Great Performers series artist with the Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra.
Denyce Graves is currently on the Voice Faculty at the Peabody Conservatory of Music in Baltimore, MD.
Personal life
In the late 1980s Graves was involved with tenor Fernando del Valle. She later married guitarist David Perry in 1990, but the two divorced in the early 2000s. Graves then had a relationship with French composer and clarinetist Vincent Thomas. After breaking up Graves discovered she was pregnant, something she thought was impossible because she had been told that fibroids and other conditions prevented her from getting pregnant. In June 2004, she gave birth to Ella (named after Ella Fitzgerald) via emergency C-section in Paris.[6] In June 2006, she met Robert Montgomery, a Johns Hopkins doctor, on an airplane from Dulles Airport to Paris.[4] They were married on June 29, 2009, in a family-only affair. In August the couple travelled to Kenya for a tradition Maasai blessing and had a five-day wedding celebration in September that featured a kick-off party in a private airplane hangar, a rehearsal dinner at their home, a reception at the Anderson House in Dupont Circle, and a day-after picnic on the grounds of Duke Ellington High School.[7] Montgomery is now the Chief of Transplant Surgery at Johns Hopkins Medical Center. The couple resides in Bethesda, Maryland.
Sweet Little Jesus Boy Denyce Graves
Caccini's Ave Maria by Denyce Graves
DOUBT - Mezzo Soprano Denyce Graves: Long Awaited Return to Minnesota Opera
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