Edward Matthews, African American Baritone
Edward Matthews born august 3 1897 in Ossining New York. According to opera critics, he was a baritone with a deep excellent voice. He came from a musical family. His sister Inez was a mezzo-soprano concert singer and his mother was a church soloist. In 1926 he received his Bachelor of Arts Degree from Fisk University in Nashville Tenn. While at Fisk he sung with the Fisk Quartet and toured Europe with the Fisk Jubilee Singers. 1928 he studied with the Bostonian voice teacher Arthur Hubbard in Boston Mass. He had his debut at Boston’s Jordon Hall on February of 1930 and New York’s Town Hall on January of the following year. Roland Hayes was the sponsor of the event in New York. He also appeared at New York’s Carnegie Hall and made several concert tours to Latin America. In 1932 he appeared as a regular member of the Major Bowes Capital Radio Family on CBS.
In 1934, he created the role of "Ignatius of Loyola" in Thomson's Four Saints in Three Acts, which he reprised in the 1952 revival of the opera - his last appearance on Broadway. In 1935, he created his most famous role - Jake the fisherman, in the original 1935 production of Gershwin's Porgy and Bess. Here, Matthews introduced the song "A Woman Is a Sometime Thing". He recreated the role in the 1942 revival of the opera, and in the 1951 three-LP album set - the most complete recording of Porgy and Bess made up to that time.
He taught at Fisk University and Howard University in D.C. He was teaching at Virginia state college in Woodbridge Virginia at the time of his death. He was involved in a car accident and lost his life on February 29, 1954.
Information for the bio was taken from Wikipedia
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