Elizabeth Talylor Greenfield, First Black internationally known OPera Star

 Information provided by biography.com

 Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield was an internationally recognized African-American vocalist in the 1800s, known in the press as the "Black Swan."

Synopsis

Born in or around the second decade of the 1800s in Natchez, Mississippi, Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield established a career as an acclaimed vocalist, touring the United States and Great Britain, where she gave a Buckingham Palace concert for Queen Victoria. Known as the "Black Swan," Greenfield continued performing into the 1860s and also worked as a teacher. She died in in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on March 31, 1876.

Background

Born Elizabeth Taylor, the exact date of Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield's birth is unknown, with various sources listing different years. She was born into slavery somewhere reportedly around the second decade of the 1800s in the region of Natchez, Mississippi to mother Anna and father Taylor (his listed last name). The mistress of the grounds, the widowed Mrs. Holliday Greenfield, moved to Philadelphia in the 1820s and took the young Elizabeth with her. Holliday eventually became a Quaker, freeing her slaves. Though her parents moved overseas to Liberia, Elizabeth continued to live with Holliday for a time as a child and later as an adult, taking her last name.

Named 'Black Swan'

Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield had a passion for song, becoming a church vocalist and learning how to play instruments like the harp and piano on her own. She was only able to receive limited musical training due to racist ideology but was nonetheless able to develop a stunning voice, with an apparently multi-octave range and the ability to sing soprano, tenor and bass. It is believed Greenfield began performing for private events by the 1840s.
In the fall of 1851, upon traveling to Buffalo, New York to attend a concert by fellow vocalist Jenny Lind, Greenfield was later able to give a performance of her own. With accolades coming in from the newspaper press, she went on a multiple city tour the following year and would come to be hailed as the first nationally recognized African-American concert singer, eventually receiving the same acclaim in parts of Europe as well. For Greenfield, the media initially came up with the nickname "African Nightingale" and, later, "Black Swan."

 Reenactment of The Black Swan
 Portraits

Mattiwilda Dobbs Dies at 90

Mattiwilda Dobbs, Soprano and Principal at Met, Dies at 90. If you would like to listen to some of her performances, just type her name in the search box.
By MARGALIT FOXDEC. 10, 2015

Mattiwilda Dobbs, a coloratura soprano who was the third African-American to appear as a principal singer with the Metropolitan Opera, died on Tuesday at her home in Atlanta. She was 90. Her death was confirmed by a niece, Michele Jordan.
Though Ms. Dobbs’s voice was not immense, she was routinely praised by critics for its crystalline purity and supple agility, and for her impeccable intonation, sensitive musicianship and captivating stage presence.
She also had a highly regarded international career as a recitalist, singing at Town Hall in New York and on other celebrated stages, and was especially renowned as an interpreter of Schubert lieder.
When Ms. Dobbs made her Met debut, as Gilda in Verdi’s “Rigoletto,” on Nov. 9, 1956, she had already sung to great acclaim at La Scala in Milan, where she was the first black principal singer; Covent Garden in London; and the San Francisco Opera, where she had made her United States operatic debut, as the Queen of Shemakha in Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Le Coq d’Or,” in 1955.
At the Met, she was preceded by two black singers: the contralto Marian Anderson, who made her debut in January 1955, and the baritone Robert McFerrin, who made his a few weeks later. (Mr. McFerrin was the father of the jazz singer Bobby McFerrin.)
Reviewing Ms. Dobbs’s Met debut, opposite the baritone Leonard Warren, Howard Taubman wrote in The New York Times: “The young soprano has a voice of substance and quality, well placed and expertly controlled. Her singing is true, flexible at the top in coloratura passages and glowing in texture throughout the scale.”
The first black woman to be offered a long-term contract by the Met, Ms. Dobbs appeared with the company 29 times through 1964. Her roles there included Oscar the pageboy (sung by a soprano) in Verdi’s “Un Ballo in Maschera”; Zerlina in Mozart’s “Don Giovanni”; and the title part in Donizetti’s “Lucia di Lammermoor,” for which, The Daily News reported in 1957, the audience summoned her back for nine curtain calls after she had sung her mad scene.
If Ms. Dobbs is less well remembered today than some singers of her era, that is partly because she made relatively few recordings. It is also because her debut fell between the historic advent of Ms. Anderson and the blazing ascendance of Leontyne Price, widely considered the first black operatic superstar, who made her Met debut in 1961.
What was more, Ms. Dobbs happened to have joined the Met as part of the incoming class of 1956-57 — a group of newly hired principal singers that included the titanic sopranos Antonietta Stella and Maria Callas.
Named for a grandmother, Mattie Wilda Sykes, Mattiwilda Dobbs was born in Atlanta on July 11, 1925, the fifth of six daughters of John Wesley Dobbs and the former Irene Ophelia Thompson.
Hers was a distinguished family: Ms. Dobbs’s father, a mail-train clerk, was long active in civic affairs, helping to register black voters as early as the 1930s. In the late 1940s he helped found the Atlanta Negro Voters League.

Mr. Dobbs insisted on a college education, along with seven years’ study of the piano, for each of his daughters, and he prevailed in every instance. As a girl, Mattiwilda also sang in her church choir but, retiring and bashful, did not envision a performing career.
She began voice lessons in earnest only as an undergraduate at Spelman College in Atlanta. After earning her bachelor’s degree — she graduated first in her class with majors in Spanish and music — the young Ms. Dobbs moved North at her father’s insistence for advanced vocal training.
“I would never have been a singer if it were not for my father,” she told Look magazine in 1969. “I was too shy.”
In New York, Ms. Dobbs became a pupil of the German soprano Lotte Leonard; she also studied at Tanglewood. At the same time, as a hedge against the uncertainties of a career in music, she earned a master’s degree in Spanish from Columbia University Teachers College.
Ms. Dobbs was a winner of the Marian Anderson Scholarship Fund in 1948, and received a scholarship from the John Hay Whitney Foundation not long afterward. On the strength of her awards, she moved to Paris, where she studied with the art-song specialist Pierre Bernac.
In 1951, she came to wide international attention by winning a first prize in the Geneva International Music Competition.
Over the years, Ms. Dobbs also sang at the Glyndebourne Festival in England and with the Royal Swedish Opera, the Hamburg State Opera and the Israel Philharmonic. In 1959, she was one of four Americans — the others were Gary Cooper, Edward G. Robinson and the producer Harold Hecht — sent by President Dwight D. Eisenhower to establish a cultural exchange program with the Soviet Union.
Ms. Dobbs’s first husband, Luis Rodriguez Garcia de la Piedra, a Spanish journalist whom she married in 1953, died the next year. (Only days after his death, she honored a commitment to sing at Covent Garden before the new monarch, Queen Elizabeth II.)
In 1957 Ms. Dobbs married Bengt Janzon, a Swedish journalist, and she was known afterward in private life as Mattiwilda Dobbs Janzon.
Mr. Janzon died in 1997. Ms. Dobbs’s survivors include a sister, June Dobbs Butts.
Ms. Dobbs’s recordings include Mozart’s “The Abduction From the Seraglio,” Bizet’s “The Pearl Fishers” and Offenbach’s “Tales of Hoffmann.”
After retiring from the concert stage, Ms. Dobbs taught voice at the University of Texas, Spelman College and, for many years, Howard University in Washington.
Throughout her career, Ms. Dobbs refused to sing in segregated concert halls. She did not perform in her hometown, Atlanta, for instance, until 1962, when she sang before an integrated audience at the Municipal Auditorium there.
In January 1974 she performed at another epochal Atlanta event, singing the spiritual “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands” at the inauguration of the city’s first black mayor, Maynard Jackson.
The choice of Ms. Dobbs to perform at Mr. Jackson’s inauguration seemed almost foreordained, and not merely because of their shared background as racial pioneers. Mr. Jackson, the great-great-grandson of a slave, was also Ms. Dobbs’s nephew.

Voices of Black Opera

Voices Of Black Opera

Voices Of Black Opera

Leontyne Price "Pace, pace mio Dio" 1980


Voices Of Black Opera



Ryan Speedo Green, bass-baritone


Eric Owens, Verdi's Macbeth, Live in The Greene Space



Tichina Vaughn Condotta, Il Trovatore, Verdi, Azucena



Noah Stewart Highlights



Leontyne Price, William Warfield: Porgy & Bess duet - "Bess, You Is My Woman Now".wmv



Kathleen Battle sings "O mio babbino caro" from Puccini's Gianni Schicchi





Shirley Verrett as Dalila "Mon coeur s'ouvre a ta voix"



Opera Noire of New York Gala 2007.avi

GEORGIA GORDON TAYLOR (1855-1913), vocalist

Information for this post was provided by William Dillard on Facebook:

GEORGIA GORDON TAYLOR (1855-1913)

Georgia Gordon Taylor, a native Nashvillian, was an original Fisk University Jubilee Singer. She entered Fisk in 1868 and remained a student in the literary department. She took music lessons from George L. White before becoming a Jubilee Singer in 1872. Georgia was among the first group of singers to tour the United States and Europe in 1872-73, when the Jubilee Singers appeared before Queen Victoria in England. After returning to America, Georgia married the Reverend Preston Taylor, founder of Greenwood Cemetery and Lea Avenue Christian (Disciples of Christ) Church. In 1978, Georgia Gordon Taylor was posthumously awarded a bachelor's degree by Walter Leonard, president of Fisk University. Georgia Gordon was eighteen years old when she went to Europe in 1873. She sits in a Victorian chair with her feet on a footstool at the extreme right of the oil painting by Haverhill, Queen Victoria's artist-friend, who was so fascinated with the Jubilee Singers' music that he offered his services free of charge to the Queen to paint the group's portrait. This famous oil portrait now hangs in the Appleton Room of Jubilee Hall on Fisk University's campus.
Georgia was born in 1855 in Nashville, Tennessee, to a mulatto mother, Mercy Duke Gordon (1833-1890), and a slave father, George Gordon (1830-1870). Mercy's mother was white, and the law required that children of free mothers were free. Between 1620 and 1820, most American mulattoes had white mothers and black fathers. Mercy had another child, Elwina, born in 1848 and fathered by a white man (a "Doctor Warner") before she married the black slave, George Gordon. It also was common for slaves and free blacks to marry each other. Free blacks comprised nearly twenty-two percent of Nashville's population by 1860, and mulattoes (persons of black and white parentage) made up more than half of the town's free Negroes. Some slaves, perhaps like George Gordon, were quasi-independent persons, who were allowed to live in their free spouse's household, hire out their own time, and pay part of their wages to their owner. Because Mercy was a free person, all of her children were born free, even though Georgia's father was a slave. Mercy and George had two children: Governor B. (1853-1870) and Georgia.

Georgia married Preston Taylor (1849-1931) and had one child, Preston G. Taylor (1890-91); she was broken-hearted over the death of her seven-month-old son. She became her husband's constant companion, but she gave freely of her singing ability as a soprano soloist throughout Nashville's black community.
Following her death in 1913, Georgia Gordon Taylor was buried in Nashville's Greenwood Cemetery on Elm Hill Pike, where a magnificent and beautiful monument marks her resting place. A plaque denotes that she was an original Jubilee Singer, and her experiences with the Jubilee Singers are well documented in the Special Collections section of the Fisk University Library.

Emma W. Bragg

Author: J. Mark Lowe
Her Husband: Elder Preston Taylor
Pastor of the Church of Disciples, Nashville, Tenn. - General Financial Agent of a College - Big Contractor and the Leading Undertaker.

Our subject is the leading minister of the Church of the Disciples. He was born in Shreveport, La., Nov. 7, 1819. He was born in slavery. His parents were Zed and Betty Taylor. He was carried to Kentucky when a year old; he was a promising boy and shed sunshine wherever he was. At the age of four years he heard his first sermon on the spot where the First Baptist Church now stands in the city of Lexington, Ky., and afterwards told his mother that he would be a preacher some day; so deep was the impression made on his young mind that years have not been able to eradicate it. He was affectionately cared for, and grew up as Samuel of old, ripe for the duties of his life. When the [Civil] war broke out he saw the soldiers marching and determined to join them at the first opportunity, and so he enlisted in Company G., One Hundred and Sixteenth United States Infantry, in 1864, as a drummer, and was at the Siege of Richmond, Petersburg and the surrender of Lee. His regiment also did garrison duty in Texas, then returned to New Orleans where they did garrison duty until mustered out of the service. He then learned the stone cutter's trade and became skillful in monument work, and also in engraving on marble. He went to Louisville, Ky., and in the leading marble yards found plenty of work, but the white men refused to work with him because of his color. He was offered a situation as train porter on the L. & C. Railroad, and for four years he was classed as one of the best railroad men in the service, and when he resigned he was requested to remain with a promotion to assistant baggage master; but as he could be no longer retained, the officers gave him a strong recommendation and a pass over all the roads for an extensive trip, which he took through the North. He accepted on his return a call to the pastorate of the Christian Church at Mt. Sterling, Ky. He remained there fifteen years, and the Lord prospered him in building up the largest congregation in the State among those of his faith, besides building them the finest brick edifice as a place for the worship of God in that section of the State. During these fifteen years he became known as the leading minister of his church in the United States. Not only in Kentucky has he been instrumental in organizing and building both congregations and meeting houses, but he was unanimously chosen the general evangelist of the United States, which position he held for a number of years besides assisting in the educational work of his race.
He very recently purchased the large spacious college property at New Castle, Ky., which originally cost $18,000, exclusive of the grounds, and at once began the task of paying for it. The school is in operation with a corps of teachers, and has a bright future before it. He is still one of the trustees, and the financial agent of what is now known as the "Christian Bible College," at New Castle. Some idea can be given of this man of push and iron nerve and bold undertakings by giving a passage in his life: When the Big Sandy Rail road was under contract to be completed from Mt. Sterling to Richmond, Va., the contractors refused to hire colored men to work on it, preferring Irish labor. He at once made a bid for sections 3 and 4 and was successful in his bid; he then erected a large commissary and quarters for his men, bought seventy-five head of mules and horses, carts, wagons, cans and all the necessary implements and tools, and with one hundred and fifty colored men he led the way. Jxl fourteen months he completed the two miles of the most difficult part of this great trunk line at a cost of about $75,000.
The President of the road, Mr. C. P. Huntington, said he had built thousands of miles of road, but he never saw a contractor who finished his contract in advance, and so he then was requested by the chief engineer of the works to move his force to another county and help out some of the white contractors. This he did not do. Afterwards he was offered other important contracts, but declined. A syndicate in Nebraska offered him the position of superintendent of their coal mines, but knowing it would take him away from his chosen calling, he declined the offer. For a number of years he was editor of "Our Colored Brethren," a department in the Christian Standard, a newspaper published as the organ of his denomination at Cincinnati, Ohio, with a circulation of 50,000 copies a week. He has written for many books and periodicals. He is a member of both Masonic and Oddfellow Lodges and was State Grand Chaplain of the former and State Grand Master of the latter and held these positions for three years and traveled all over the State, speaking and lecturing. Especially do the Oddfellows owe much to him for their rise and progress in the State of Kentucky, and the order conferred upon him as a mark of honor all the degrees of the ancient institution. He has represented his Lodge in many of the National Conventions of the B.M.C, preaching the annual sermons for a number of years.
I will give another incident that will show the character of this man, how he loves his race, and with what respect he treats them: While serving the church in Nashville in 1886, the choir of the church gained great reputation by taking a prize over every other church choir in the city in a musical contest. The Nashville American gave a very flattering account of the results which caused forty-two of the leading citizens of the white race to petition, through the pastor of the church, for a concert to be given in the Opera House for the special benefit of their friends.
When Mr. Taylor met this Committee they informed him that on the night of the concert the colored people would be expected to take gallery as usual. Mr. Taylor refused deliberately to have anything further to do with the matter, and publicly denounced the whole crowd in his church, which was very satisfactory to the colored citizens who urged him to give a concert nevertheless, and he consented. On the night of the concert there was scarcely standing room for the people, who said they desired to show their appreciation of this manly stand in resenting such overtures, and the result was an increase to the treasury of over two hundred dollars. He is one of the leading men in the community where he lives, commanding the respect of all who know him. A slight idea may be given of his popularity by stating that once when a gold cane was voted for in some entertainment in the city of Nashville his name was submitted by his friends to be voted for, he opposed the suggestion, but nevertheless, when the votes were counted out of the three thousand votes in that large city, he got over two thirds of the number. A quotation from the Christian Standard, Cincinnati, Ohio, March 3, 1886, will give some estimate of how he is held by the editor of that paper. A grand party was given for his benefit, and the editor used these words in reference to his absence:
"We have just received an invitation to a tea party at Nashville, Tennessee to be given in honor of Elder Preston Taylor. We would go all that distance, were it possible, to.show our respect for the zeal, ability and untiring energy of Preston Taylor. As we cannot go, we take this method of atoning for our absence."
Mr. Taylor is a man who will impress you when you meet him as thoroughly in earnest. He is never idle, always with new plans, warm hearted, generous, sympathetic and a true brother to all men who deserve the cognizance of earnest, faithful workers for Christ.

Three Mo' Tenors

My Notes: This is a list of the current and pass members of Three Mo' Tenors. The information was taken from their website at:http://threemotenors.com/performers. If you would like to check out more performances, just type their name in the search box.
Three Mo’ Tenors is about more than just three men. It is a story about the history and the future of exceptional Black tenors who deserve to be heard. Since its 2001 debut on PBS’ “Great Performances” Three Mo’ Tenors has introduced thirteen African-American tenors to enthusiastic audiences here in the US as well as in the UK, Russia, Canada, Armenia and Paraguay — and as long as there are more undiscovered Black tenors waiting in the wings, THREE MO’ TENORS will be here to tell their amazing story.
Kenneth Alston

Kenneth Alston continues to perform with Three Mo’ Tenors when his schedule permits as he works toward a divinity degree. You can also find Kenneth at Elpida Community Church of Christ in Brooklyn where he is Minister of Music.

Ramone Diggs is currently pursuing a law degree at West Virginia University College of Law.

Kenneth Gayle is living in Houston, TX where he serves as serves as Producing Director for Music Doing Good, a non-profit organization that educates, entertains and enriches through innovative musical programming while he maintains an active performing career. Recent performances include the Shenandoah Valley Bach Festival, Opera Vivente in Baltimore, MD and his one-man musical journeys: “One Voice and One Heart…Revealed”.

Robert Mack is one of the founding members and General Director of Opera Noire of New York, a performing arts company as well as a resource and networking organization. He balances his stewardship of Opera Noire with his role as artist with the Metropolitan Opera of New York and a busy international touring career. Robert recently appeared in Opéra Française de New York , Houston Grand Opera, Opera Carolina, Opera Company of Philadelphia, Indianapolis Opera, The Paris Bastille and The Tearto Real in Spain.

Sean T. Miller is a hard man to catch up with. He recently performed in the 75th anniversary production of Porgy and Bess, and has frequently performed the roles of Sportin Life, Mingo and Crab Man, most recently in Dresden and Dusseldorf, Germany, Las Palmas, Spain and Catania, Italy at the Teatro Massimo Bellini.
You might also see him at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Chicago Opera Theater, Glimmerglass Opera, Sarasota Opera, Opera Memphis, Kentucky Opera, Portland Opera, Utah Festival Opera, Virginia Arts Festival, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Chicago City Symphony, Rimrock Opera, Spokane Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Opera, or Tulsa Opera.
Marvin Scott relocated to Germany in 2009 and where he is an artist with the Nordhausen Opera.
Three Mo' Tenors - Full Concert - 07/17/01 (OFFICIAL)

THREE MO TENORS-TODAY I SING THE BLUES

In honor of Black History Week, African Amer for LA Opera

In honor of Black History Week, Mark Broyard
Information provided by African American for La Opera
Performance at Black History Month Lecture by van Young for African-Americans for Los Angeles Opera
AFRICAN AMERICANS FOR LOS ANGELES OPERA
AALAO is dedicated to increasing the awareness of opera throughout the Los Angeles community.


MARK BROYARD / AEROS PIERCE perform ' MY WORLD ' from ' TROUBLED ISLAND '



MARK BROYARD / AEROS PIERCE perform WGStill's ' MUST I DIE ' from MOTA


MARK BROYARD / AEROS PIERCE perform ' HEAR MY PLEA ' from ' THE PILLAR '





WE SHALL OVERCOME 02 23 14



AEROS DeANDA PIERCE plays WGStill Instrumental



MARK BROYARD / AEROS DeANDA PIERCE - Perform WGStill



VICTOR EKPO plays SPIRITUAL ' HERE'S ONE ' by WGStill




MARK BROYARD & AEROS PIERCE PERFORM WGStill's CHILDREN OF THE WORLD 02 09 14

This day in History: Sissieretta Jones was an early opera pioneer:

Information provided by William Dillard on Facebook

This day in History: Sissieretta Jones was an early opera pioneer:

The birth of Sissieretta Jones is remembered on this date in 1869. She was an African American concert and spiritual singer.

She was born Matilda S. Joyner in Portsmouth, Virginia, the daughter of a Baptist minister, Jeremiah Joyner, and Henrietta Joyner, from whom Jones apparently inherited her enchanting soprano voice. When Jones was 7, the family moved to Providence, in search of better educational and economic opportunities. At 14, she began her first formal music training at the Providence Academy of Music and at music schools in Boston. The same year, she married David Richard Jones, "a gambling man" who went on to manage his wife's career and lavishly spend their money until the couple divorced, in 1900.

In 1892, at the age of 23, Jones sang in New York's Madison Square Garden. A newspaper review of the performance compared her to famous Italian opera singer Adelina Patti, and it condescendingly tagged Jones as "the Black Patti," a nickname she disliked but was unable to shake. Early in life, her family moved to Providence, Rhode Island, and she studied voice at the Providence Academy of Music, and the New England Conservatory. Jones had many successes in her career: several of them were breakthroughs that paved the way for later artists. She sang at the Chicago World Fair in 1893, as well as Madison Square Garden and for several Presidents of the United States.

From 1895 to 1916, Jones led a troupe of singers and musicians on a tour through the United States and abroad. Called the Black Patti Troubadours, the group performed minstrel shows and musical skits. While Jones initially considered the minstrel performances demeaning, she was able to expand her repertoire by singing spirituals and opera arias for the show's finale. The show served as a training ground for hundreds of black entertainers. Jones was given many gifts from admirers, among them, a medal from President Hippolyte of Haiti, a bar of diamonds and emeralds from the citizens of St. Thomas, an emerald shamrock from the Irish people of Providence and a diamond tiara from the governor general of a West Indies island. She often wore her 17 medals across her chest during performances.

After touring for about 20 years, the Troubadours disbanded, and Jones returned to her home in Providence to care for her ailing mother and grandmother. Abroad, she sang for royalty. It was not all positive, however. Early in her career, Jones was dubbed the "Black Patti" by press: this was a dismissive (although intended as complimentary) comparison to Adelina Patti, a successful Italian soprano at that time. The name stuck. As well, she was not able to perform at the Metropolitan Opera in New York: this obstacle would not be overcome until 1955, by contralto Marian Anderson. She left the concert stage in 1896 for the vaudeville act, Black Patti's Troubadours. She retired in 1916.

She lived the next 18 years at her home on Wheaton Street, taking in homeless children and selling mementos from her days of glory to pay her living expenses. Classical music is full of issues of race and gender. A casual glance through a standard music history textbook will usually reveal names such as Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Joseph Haydn, Henry Purcell, Richard Wagner, and Franz Schubert (all white men). Often, those who were not white or male were largely ignored. One exception to this, however, was Sissieretta Jones.

Jones died of cancer in June 1933 in Rhode Island Hospital. She was buried in Grace Church Cemetery.

My Notes:
If you would like to hear her recordings, type her name in te search box on the home page

Seth McCoy (Tenor)

Seth McCoy (Tenor)
Born: December 17, 1928 - Sanford, North Carolina, USA
Died: January 22, 1997 - Rochester, New York, USA
The black American tenor and teacher, Seth McCoy, studied at the North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College (graduated, 1950), before pursuing vocal training with Pauline Thesmacher at the Cleveland Music School Settlement and with Antonia Lavanne in New York.

Seth Mcoy first gained notice as an active soloist, when he appeared with the Robert Shaw Chorale (1963-1965), with which he toured throughout the USA and South America. Later he appeared with the Bach Aria Group (1973-1980). He was ons in his name may be made to the American Diabetes Association and the Kidney Foundation. also soloist with orchestras in most of the largest cities in the USA, such as the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra. He sang under Erich Leinsdorf, Zubin Mehta, and Mstislav Rostropovich, among others. In 1970, he performed at the Carmel Bach Festival under Sandor Salgo. In 1978 he made his European debut at the Aldebourgh Festival. He made his Metropolitan Opera debut in February 1979 as Tamino in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte. His London debut was as soloist in J.S. Bach's Christmas Oratorio (BWV 248) in 1986. He also toured Europe, South America, North Africa, and the Middle East.

Seth McCoy joined the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York in 1982, after serving as a voice professor at the University of Michigan. In his lifetime, he was honored with the Marian Anderson Scholarship, the Artist Advisory Council of Chicago Oratorio Award, the Martha Baird Rockefeller Grant, and the Albert Schweitzer Medal for Artistry in Voice.

Seth McCoy, professor of voice at the Eastman School of Music and one of the nation's premier oratorio soloists, died of complications from a long illness. McCoy is survived by his wife, Jane Gunter-McCoy, and his mother, Pauline Jackson. Contributi


Source: University of Rochester Website; Baker’s Biographical Dictionary of 20th Century Classical Musicians (1997)
Contributed by Aryeh Oron (August 2001); Manfred Krugmann (Photo 01, July 2011)



Every Valley Shall Be Exalted (Messiah)

William Horace Marshall & son, William Clarence Marshall III

William Horace Marshall (August 19, 1924 – June 11, 2003) was an American actor, director, and opera singer. He is best known for his title role in the 1972 blaxploitation classic Blacula and its sequel Scream Blacula Scream (1973), as the "King of Cartoons" on the 1980s television show Pee-wee's Playhouse beginning with its second season, and an appearance on the original Star Trek television series. He had a commanding height of 6 ft 5 in (1.96 m),as well as a deep bass voice.

Biography
Early life and career
Marshall was born in Gary, Indiana, the son of Thelma (née Edwards) and Vereen Marshall, who was a dentist. He attended New York University as an art student, but then trained for a theatre career at the Actors Studio, at the American Theatre Wing, and with Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse.
He made his Broadway debut in 1944 in Carmen Jones. Among his many other Broadway appearances, he understudied Boris Karloff as Captain Hook in Peter Pan in 1950, then played the leading role of De Lawd in the 1951 revival of The Green Pastures (a role he repeated in a BBC telecast of the play in 1958). He performed in Shakespeare plays many times on the stage in the U.S. and Europe, including the title role in at least six productions of Othello. His Othello (which was later captured in a video production in 1981), was called by Harold Hobson of the London Sunday Times "the best Othello of our time," continuing:
"...nobler than [Godfrey] Tearle, more martial than [John] Gielgud, more poetic than [Frederick] Valk. From his first entry, slender and magnificently tall, framed in a high Byzantine arch, clad in white samite, mystic, wonderful, a figure of Arabian romance and grace, to his last plunging of the knife into his stomach, Mr Marshall rode without faltering the play's enormous rhetoric, and at the end the house rose to him."
Marshall even played Othello in a jazz musical version, Catch My Soul, with Jerry Lee Lewis as Iago, in Los Angeles in 1968. He also portrayed on stage Paul Robeson and Frederick Douglass. (Marshall researched Douglass's life for years and portrayed him on television in Frederick Douglass: Slave and Statesman, which he co-produced in 1983.[9])
Film and television career

Marshall's career on screen began in 1952 in Lydia Bailey as a Haitian leader. He followed that with a prominent role as Glycon, comrade and fellow gladiator to Victor Mature in Demetrius and the Gladiators (1954). His demeanor, voice and stature gave him a wide range, though he was ill-suited for the subservient roles that many black actors of his generation were most frequently offered. He was Attorney General Edward Brooke in The Boston Strangler and a leader of the Mau-Mau uprising in Something of Value. He received the most widespread fame for his role in the vampire film Blacula and its sequel Scream Blacula Scream. In later years, Marshall played the King of Cartoons on Pee-wee's Playhouse, replacing actor Gilbert Lewis, during the 1980s. (The character's catchphrase "Let...the cartoooon...begin!" became immensely popular.)

In the early 1950s, Marshall starred briefly in a series about black police officers, entitled Harlem Detective. The show was canceled when Marshall was named as a communist in the anti-communist newsletter Counterattack. Nonetheless, Marshall managed to continue appearing in both television and films. Marshall is perhaps best remembered by television viewers for his roles as Dr. Richard Daystrom in the Star Trek episode "The Ultimate Computer" and as the travelling opera singer Thomas Bowers on Bonanza. In 1964, he appeared, with actor Ivan Dixon, as the leader of a newly independent African nation and as a THRUSH agent in the first-season episode of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. entitled "The Vulcan Affair". He won two local Emmys for producing and performing in a PBS production, As Adam Early in the Morning, a poetical theatre piece originally performed on stage.[2] He also was featured in the popular series, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour in an episode titled, "The Jar", with actors Pat Buttram and George Lindsey. Marshall also appeared on the British spy series Danger Man (Deadline, 1962). In 1969, he had a special guest appearance as the character Amalek in an episode of the Wild Wild West entitled "The Night of the Egyptian Queen", and also appeared in the Boston strangler film.

Later life and death
In addition to his acting and producing work, Marshall taught acting at various universities including University of California, Irvine and at the Mufandi Institute, an African-American arts and music institution in the Watts section of Los Angeles. He did similar work at Chicago's eta Creative Arts Foundation, which in 1992 named Marshall one of its Epic Men of the 20th century.

Marshall was the unmarried partner for 42 years of Sylvia Gussin Jarrico, former wife of blacklisted screenwriter Paul Jarrico. Marshall died June 11, 2003, from complications arising from Alzheimer's disease and diabetes. He is survived by four children: sons Tariq, Malcolm, and Claude Marshall, and daughter, singer Gina Loring. The eulogies at his funeral were spoken by Sidney Poitier, Ivan Dixon, Paul Winfield, and Marla Gibbs.
Marshall was considered, by many, to be a much underrated actor and one who never got his due. Actor and screenwriter Terek Puckett remarked that Marshall should have had a much more successful and larger screen career. Even saying that Marshall would have been a perfect choice for the role Thulsa Doom in Conan.

Obituary of William Horace Marshall
William Marshall, 78
Stage, screen actor
starred in `Blacula'
June 19, 2003|By Simone M. Sebastian, Tribune staff reporter
Some thespians herald William Marshall as one of the greatest Othellos of the 20th Century. Children of the 1980s laughed with him as the King of Cartoons on "Pee-Wee's Playhouse." And most Americans remember him as Blacula in the 1972 film. But to Mr. Marshall, the hallmark of his career was bringing the lives of historical black. He was marked by "his devotion and interest in the presentation of great black leaders of the past," said Anita Rutzky, a longtime teacher and friend of Mr. Marshall. "He wanted the world to hear them because they weren't in the textbooks."
Mr. Marshall, 78, a renowned Shakespearean and film actor, died Wednesday, June 11, of Alzheimer's disease in a Los Angeles nursing facility.


He was known for his wide-ranging acting talent and vocal abilities to match. Having played Othello numerous times, from New York's Shakespeare in the Park to the jazz adaptation, "Catch My Soul," Mr. Marshall was called "the best Othello of our time" by The London Sunday Times.
Mr. Marshall fought against the blaxploitation films of the 1960s and '70s and brought more positive black characters and historical figures to the theater.
When producers of "Blacula" offered him the title role, "he thought they were joking," said his companion of 45 years, Sylvia Jarrico. "He didn't want to play this victimized ordinary fellow." Mr. Marshall re-created the character as an African prince on a mission to end the slave trade.
In 1973, he told the Chicago Tribune he was disturbed by the state of black theater and was dedicating his career to portraying "the really heroic history of my people."

He performed a one-man PBS broadcast of abolitionist Frederick Douglass during the 1980s and later adapted the act to stage, performing it across the country for over a decade.
"That was the theme of his work," Jarrico said. Mr. Marshall was born in Gary, and received a bachelor's degree from Governors State University. In 1945, Mr. Marshall left Chicago for New York, eventually settling in Los Angeles in 1966.

Mr. Marshall returned to the Chicago area many times to perform and give guest lectures to drama students. He produced and performed "As Adam Early in the Morning," a theater adaptation of poetry and literature at ETA Creative Arts Foundation during the 1970s. He also starred in the 1980 production of "An Enemy of the People" at the Goodman Theater.
He appeared on television shows including "The Jeffersons" and "Star Trek."
Mr. Marshall was honored by ETA in 1992 as one of the "Epic Men of the 20th Century."
"He was an icon, a cultural icon," said Abena Joan Brown, co-founder and president of ETA. "You can't make a greater impact than that."
In addition to his companion, Mr. Marshall is survived by three sons Claude, Malcolm, and Tariq; a daughter, Gina Loring; and a grandchild.

William Clarence Marshall III
William Clarence Marshall is the son of William H. Marshall. He has been heard in many opera house. he made his Carnegie Hall debut in 2001, as the bass soloist in Beethoven's Mass in C. Audiences have heard him in opera houses throughout the United States, Canada, South America, Europe, Australia, and the Middle East. Additionally, he has performed the role of "Joe" in Hal Prince's production of Show Boat on Broadway and the national tour. He has been widely acclaimed as an "exceptional" Porgy in The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess, and as a "wonderful" Pooh-Bah in Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado. The accomplished pianist/composer Jeremie Michael has chosen Mr. Marshall as the original voice for his new workAfter Hours, A Song Cycle.

Michael and Marshall premiered After Hours, a Song Cycle. An Aspen Music Festival Fellow, Mr. Marshall's television appearances include singing the role of Parson All talk in excerpts from Scott Joplin's Treemonisha, broadcast in Aida's Brothers and Sisters: Black Voices In Opera, on PBS' Great Performances. He also appeared as a featured soloist in An African-American Christmas, with Ruby Dee and the late Ossie Davis, for Vision TV. He has sung the following roles in fully staged productions: Balthazar (Amahl and the Night Visitors); Bartolo (Le Nozze di Figaro); Carl Magnus (A Little Night Music); Colline (La Boheme); Don Alfonso (Cosi fan Tutte); Judge Turpin (Sweeney Todd); and Sarastro (Die Zauberfloete). In the Shadow Box Theatre's award-winning children's recording, How The Turtle Got Its Shell: An African Tale, Mr. Marshall created the roles "Nyame, The Sky God," and "Osebo, The Leopard". This work was selected as a "Notable Children's recording" by the American Library Association. In The Holiday Spirit His debut CD is available from williamclarencemarshall@yahoo.com. Mr. Marshall resides in New York City and Cleveland. Mr. Marshall is a member of AEA, AGMA, CAEA.
Mr. Marshall has appeared locally with the Akron Symphony Orchestra, Arts Renaissance Tremont, At Home In The Arts, Chagrin Falls Studio Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra, Cleveland Pops Orchestra, Solon Philharmonic, Time Traveller, Tuscarawas Philharmonic, Warren Philharmonic, Opera Cleveland, Opera Western Reserve, Opera per Tutti, Edna Duffy Liturgical Ensemble, Firestone High School Symphonic Choir, Forest City Singers, Jazz Arts and the R. Nathaniel Dett Choir of the Cleveland School of the Arts, Summit Choral Society, Bad Epitaph Theatre, Beck Center, Carousel Dinner Theatre, Cleveland Contemporary Dance Theatre, Kalliope Stage, Karamu House, Playhouse Square, Porthouse Theatre and the Solon Center for the Arts.





Actor / Opera singer William Clarence Marshall III on the Playa T




William Marshall (aka Blacula) Sings on Rawhide (1964)



Rare Interview with William Marshall (Blacula)




William Marshall (Blacula) Interview on Live from L.A. (1991)




Ol' Man River (Jerome Kern / Oscar Hamerstein)




William Clarence Marshall sings "You're A Mean One, Mr. Grinch" a




William Clarence Marshall performs Ol' Man River




William Clarence Marshall & the CSA Jazz Arts Choir perform Black





William Clarence Marshall performs the National Anthem for the

Early black opera stars: Zelma Watson George

Bio:
GEORGE, ZELMA WATSON
GEORGE, ZELMA WATSON (1903–1994). Zelma Watson George, diplomat, social-program administrator, musicologist, opera singer, and college administrator, was born in Hearne, Texas, on December 8, 1903. She was the daughter of Samuel E. J. and Lena (Thomas) Watson. Zelma’s father was a Baptist minister. She lived in Hearne, Palestine, and Dallas and briefly in Hot Springs, Arkansas, during her childhood. She later remembered the presence of a number of prominent black leaders who spoke at her father's church and visited her home in Dallas. W. E. B. DuBois, Booker T. Washington, Carter Woodson, Mary Branch Terrell, and Walter White were a few of the notable visitors who frequently discussed issues relating to black Americans in her presence.

Her family left Dallas when her father incurred the wrath of some white Dallas citizens for his assistance to black prisoners. Threatened by vigilantes, the family moved to Topeka, Kansas, where her father accepted another pastorate in 1917. After graduating from the Topeka public schools, she enrolled in the University of Chicago. Because the university would not permit her to reside in the dormitory with white women, her father accepted a pastorate in Chicago, and Zelma lived with her family while attending college. She received a bachelor's degree in sociology from the University of Chicago in 1924, studied the pipe organ at Northwestern University from 1924 to 1926, and was a voice student at the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago from 1925 to 1927. She received a master's degree in personnel administration from New York University in 1943 and a Ph.D. in sociology from New York University in 1954. Her doctoral dissertation, A Guide to Negro Music: Toward A Sociology of Negro Music, catalogued approximately 12,000 musical compositions either inspired or written by African Americans. She received honorary doctorates from Heidelberg College ( Ohio) and Baldwin Wallace College in 1961 and Cleveland State University in 1974.

During the 1920s, after her graduation from the University of Chicago, she served as a social worker for the Associated Charities of Evanston, Illinois, and was a probation officer for the juvenile court of Chicago. From 1932 to 1937 she was dean of women and director of personnel administration at Tennessee State University in Nashville. She moved in 1937 to Los Angeles, where she established and directed the Avalon Community Center until 1942. With the assistance of a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, she then moved to Cleveland, Ohio, where she researched her dissertation and began a lengthy career of civic involvement through membership in such organizations as the YWCA, the Council of Church Women, the Girl Scouts, the Conference of Christians and Jews, the League of Women Voters, the Fund for Negro Students, the Urban League, and the NAACP. She married Clayborne George of Cleveland, Ohio, in 1944; the couple had no children.

Beginning in 1949, Zelma George performed in several stage presentations. She played and sang the lead role in Menotti's The Medium, an opera that ran for sixty-seven nights at the Karamu Theater in Cleveland and for thirteen weeks in New York City at the Edison Theater. After The Medium closed on Broadway, Zelma George received the Merit Award of the National Association of Negro Musicians. She also acted in Menotti's The Consul at the Cleveland Playhouse and performed the role of Mrs. Peachum in Kurt Weill's The Three Penny Opera at the Karamu.
During the 1950s she became involved with national and international political issues as an adviser to the Eisenhower administration. She toured with the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Armed Services from 1954 to 1957 and served in 1958 on the president's committee to plan the White House Conference on Children and Youth. She was on the executive council of the American Society for African Culture from 1959 to 1971, traveled to Europe and Asia through the Educational Exchange Program, and served as a member of the United States delegation to the United Nations in 1960. Beginning in the 1960s, she served as a speaker for the W. Colston Leigh Lecture Bureau, the Danforth Foundation, and the American Association of Colleges, usually addressing secondary schools, universities, civic clubs, and corporate employees.

Mrs. George attended a "Ban the Bomb" conference in Ghana in 1963 and attended the first World Festival of Negro Art with Marion Anderson and Duke Ellington at Senegal in 1966. Also in 1966 she became executive director of the Cleveland Job Corps Center for Women. She delivered the keynote address for the first Student International Security Council Meeting in 1969; President Richard Nixon named her to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, where she worked in 1971–72. She won the Dag Hammarskjöld Award for contributions to international understanding in 1961, the Dahlberg Peace Award in 1969, and the Mary Bethune Gold Medallion in 1973. She received good-citizenship honors from various civic and academic organizations. An exhibit recognizing her achievements as an "outstanding Texan" was mounted at the Fort Concho Museum in San Angelo in 1974. Riding in a motorized wheelchair, she participated in a march against nuclear arms in 1982, when she was eighty-eight. Zelma George was a Baptist and a member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority She died in Cleveland on July 3, 1994.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Houston Chronicle, July 5, 1994. Rowena Woodham Jelliffe, Here's Zelma (Cleveland: Alpha Omega Chapter, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, 1971). Who's Who Among Black Americans, 1985. Ruthe Winegarten, Texas Women (Austin: Eakin Press, 1985).

Black Opera Singer Series 1.: Lillian Evanti

Black Opera Singer Series is a collection of biographies of early Black Opera Singers. African Americans started performing on the opera stage when it became popular among European and American audiences. Opera as many might know first developed among the nobility. Opera is an English word which was derived from Italian plural word (opere). If you would like to learn more about opera, just type the word (opera) in the search bar. Most of the biographical series do not include videos because many of the opera stars included in the series were performing as stars on the stage prior to the invention of radio and video. The purpose of the series is to give opera lovers more historical information concerning how African American influenced the development of opera in America and Europe. Some of the series will not show up on the front page, just type "All About Opera" in the search bar or click the tab above if you would like to view all 10 series.

Lillian Evanti
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Lillian Evanti (August 12, 1890 – December 6, 1967), was an African-American opera singer.
My Notes: No recordings were found.

Life
She was born in Washington, D.C., and graduated from Armstrong Manual Training School.
She graduated from Howard University with a Bachelor's Degree in music and studied in France and Italy. Evanti, a soprano, sang at the Belasco Theater in 1926 with Marian Anderson. She debuted in 1927 in Delibes's Lakmé at Nice, France. As an opera singer and concert artist, she toured throughout Europe and South America.
In 1943, she performed with the Watergate Theater barge on the Potomac River. In 1944, she appeared at The Town Hall (New York City). She received acclaim as Violetta in Verdi's La traviata as produced by the National Negro Opera Company in 1945.
In 1963, she walked with her friend Alma Thomas in the March on Washington.
Family
She married Roy Tibbs, and lived at 1910 Vermont Avenue, Northwest, Washington, D.C.; they had a son, Thurlow E. Tibbs, Jr.

Lillian (Evans) Evanti, one of the first African American women to become an internationally prominent opera performer, was born in Washington D.C. in 1891. Evanti was born into a prominent Washington, D.C. family. Her father, Wilson Evans, was a medical doctor and teacher in the city. He was the founder of Armstrong Technical High School and served many years as its principal. Anne Brooks, Evanti’s mother, taught music in the public school system of Washington D.C.

Evanti received her education from Armstrong Technical High School and graduated from Howard University in 1917 with her bachelor’s degree in music. A gifted student and performer, she was able to speak and sing in five different languages. The following year she and Roy W. Tibbs, her Howard University music professor, married and had a son, Thurlow Tibbs.

Combining her maiden and married names into the stage name, Evanti, a lyric soprano, began singing professionally in 1918. Her career progressed slowly until she moved to France in 1925 where she became the first African American to sing with a European opera company. From France she traveled around Europe and on occasion returned to the United States to perform. During her travels she gave radio performances, sang in a variety of operas and in 1932 was given a chance to audition for the New York Metropolitan Opera. Evanti was not asked to join the Company and for some time blamed the decision on racial discrimination.

Despite the setback Evanti remained popular, performing in Latin America as well as Europe. She gave a special command performance for President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his wife, Eleanor in 1934. She also performed concerts for the armed forces during World War II.

In 1941 Evanti and Mary Cardwell Dawson created The National Negro Opera Company in Pittsburgh to provide a venue for African American performers. A series of Company performances of La Traviata, where Evanti sang the part of Violetta, was hugely successful and attracted over 12,000 people. Over her career Evanti performed in twenty four operas.

Near the end of her life Evanti returned to Washington, D.C. where she coached and gave soprano voice lessons. Lillian Evans Evanti died on December 6, 1967 in Washington D.C.


Additional bio information:

"The Half Had Not Been Told Me" › African Americans in Lafayette Square, 1795-1965

Lillian Evanti (1890-1967)

Lyric soprano Lillian Evanti was the first African American to perform with a major European opera company, but she also maintained deep ties to her native Washington, D.C.

Lyric soprano Lillian Evanti was the first African American to perform with a major European opera company, but she also maintained deep ties to her native Washington, D.C. Born Lillian Evans in 1890, she graduated from Howard University in 1907, and thirteen years later, moved to Europe, where her professional opportunities were not as limited by discrimination. She made her professional debut in Nice, France in 1924, and while abroad, adopted the stage name Evanti, a more European-sounding combination of her last name and that of her husband, Roy Tibbs.
Evanti returned to Washington periodically and performed on Lafayette Square several times in the 1920s and 1930s, at both the Belasco Theater, one of the few venues in Washington where African Americans could perform before a desegregated audience, and the Roosevelt White House. In 1926, she sang at the Belasco with Marian Anderson as a part of the festivities surrounding the football game between Howard University and Lincoln University. Four years later, the Washington Post called her solo performance at the Belasco a "home-coming triumph." In 1935 she performed for the Roosevelt’s and fondly recalled her chat with Mrs. Roosevelt saying [she] "made me feel right at home."
The portrait of Lillian Evanti displayed here depicts her in costume as Rosina in Rossini's Barber of Seville. It is one of the most highly-regarded works by Lois Mailou Jones, who knew Evanti well and once described her final moments of work on this painting:
"A very unusual thing happened while I was doing the finishing touches. The Barber of Seville, the opera, came on over the radio. Of course, when the music came on, Lillian began to sing. There was the sparkle in her eyes and the gestures and everything. It was just what I needed to finish the portrait. I caught the spirit of her, which was just marvelous."

On August 28, 1943, shortly after she sat for this painting, Evanti made her most acclaimed performance in the capital, portraying Violetta in the National Negro Opera Company's La Traviata, which was staged on a barge floating in the Potomac River. Throughout the 1940s and 1950s she traveled to Latin America as a good-will ambassador on cultural outreach journeys organized by the State Department, and received decorations from the governments of the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Liberia and Nigeria. Beginning in the mid-1930s Evanti was an advocate for establishment of a national cultural center in Washington for classical and contemporary music, drama and dance (legislation establishing such a center was approved in 1958). Evanti, who was also a composer and a collector of works by African American artists, died in 1967 in Washington, DC.

Black Opera Singers Series 2.: Ruby Elzy

Wikipedia:
Ruby Elzy (February 20, 1908 – June 26, 1943), was a pioneer Americanoperatic soprano.

Elzy was born in Pontotoc, Mississippi and educated at Rust College, the Ohio State University and the Juilliard School.
Professional accomplishments[edit]
Elzy entertained at the White House, December 15, 1937, for First LadyEleanor Roosevelt's luncheon for the wives of U.S. Supreme Court Justices. She appeared on Broadway in the musicalJohn Henry, in films, on radio and on the concert stage. She appeared with Paul Robeson in the film of The Emperor Jones, and also with Bing Crosby and Mary Martin in Birth of the Blues, though neither of these were starring roles. She sang at Harlem’s Apollo Theater and in the Hollywood Bowl.

Elzy created the role of Serena in George Gershwin's folk opera Porgy and Bess and performed in it more than eight hundred times. Her big aria in the opera was "My Man's Gone Now", Serena's lament after her husband is murdered in a crap game; but it was Anne Brown, and not Elzy who sang it on the so-called "original cast" album of selections fromPorgy and Bess, made in 1940. However, Elzy can be heard singing it on a CD release of the 1937 Gershwin Memorial Concert, which took place three months after Gershwin's death, at the Hollywood Bowl.
Legacy
Elzy rose above poverty and prejudice to become one of the most acclaimed singers of her generation, but her career lasted barely a decade. She died at the age of thirty-five in 1943, just as she was reaching the peak of her powers as a singer and about to achieve her greatest dream: to star in the title role of Giuseppe Verdi's Aida.
In 2006, Elzy's biographer, David E. Weaver, produced a first-ever CD compilation of Elzy, featuring the singer in twenty rare recorded and broadcast performances. The CD, entitled Ruby Elzy in Song, was released on the Cambria label.



My Man's Gone Now (Porgy and Bess)-Gershwin



The video below cannot be downloaded, if you would like to view it, just click the URL below
On My Journey Now (Negro Spiritual)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kx3MzncLEu0

Black Opera Singer Series 3:Todd Duncan

My Notes:
One of the task of early Black opera singers were to help open the doors for upcoming African American performers. Todd Duncan spent his entire life working for this cause. If you would like to view more videos,type his name in the internal search box.Enjoy

Todd Duncan
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Biography
Todd Duncan was born in Danville, Kentucky in 1903. He obtained his musical training at Butler University in Indianapolis with a B.A. in music followed by an M.A. from Columbia University Teachers College.
Career
In 1933, Duncan debuted in Pietro Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana at the Mecca Temple in New York with the Aeolian Opera, a black opera company.
Duncan was George Gershwin's personal choice as the first performer of the role of Porgy in Porgy and Bess in 1935 and played the role more than 1,800 times. He led the cast during the Washington run of Porgy and Bess at the National Theatre in 1936, to protest the theatre's policy of segregation. Duncan stated that he "would never play in a theater which barred him from purchasing tickets to certain seats because of his race." Eventually management would give into the demands and allow for the first integrated performance at National Theatre. Duncan was also the first performer for the role of Stephen Kumalo in Kurt Weill's Lost in the Stars.

Anne Brown as Bess with Todd Duncan as Porgy in 1942.
Duncan taught voice at Howard University in Washington, D.C. for more than fifty years. While teaching at Howard, he continued touring as a soloist with pianists William Duncan Allen and George Malloy.[2] He had a very successful career as a concert singer with over 2,000 performances in 56 countries. He retired from Howard and opened his own voice studio teaching privately and giving periodic recitals.
In 1945, he became the first African American to sing with a major opera company, and the first black person to sing in an opera with an otherwise white cast, when he performed the role of Tonio in Leoncavallo's Pagliacci with the New York City Opera. In the same year he sang the role of Escamillo, the bullfighter, in Bizet's Carmen. In 1955, Duncan was the first to record Unchained Melody, a popular song with music by Alex North and lyrics by Hy Zaret. The recording was made for the soundtrack of the obscure prison film Unchained, in which Duncan also played a minor character. Following Duncan's version, the song went on to become one of the most recorded songs of the 20th century.

In his final interview, Todd Duncan spoke of his love for spirituals: "... spirituals are so deep inside of me, it's difficult for me to find words that are meaningful. Spirituals are a part of whatever I am. When I sing them my being sings them, not my throat.... It is very difficult for me to put into words something that is at the bottom of my very being."
In addition to singing, Duncan was also a voice teacher. Among his notable pupils was operatic bass Philip Booth who was a mainstay at the Metropolitan Opera for two decades.

Honors and death
In 1978, the Washington Performing Arts Society presented his 75th birthday gala. Duncan was awarded the George Peabody Medal of Music from the Peabody Conservatory of Music of Johns Hopkins University in 1984. Other awards he received include a medal of honor from Haiti, an NAACP award, the Donaldson Award, the New York Drama Critics' Award for Lost in the Stars, and honorary doctorates from Valparaiso University and Butler University.
Duncan was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity.
He died of a heart ailment at his home in Washington, D.C., in 1998.

An Additional Bio:
Todd Duncan, 95; Sang Porgy and Helped Desegregate Opera
By ALLAN KOZINN
Published: March 2, 1998
Todd Duncan, the baritone who created the role of Porgy in Gershwin's ''Porgy and Bess'' and was the first black singer to join the New York City Opera, died on Saturday at his home in Washington. He was 95.
Mr. Duncan, whose stage credits beyond Porgy include the Lord's General in Vernon Duke's ''Cabin in the Sky'' and Stephen Kumalo in the first production of Kurt Weill's ''Lost in the Stars,'' was known for his elegant phrasing and burnished tone, as well as his dramatic persuasiveness. Those qualities won him his debut role at the New York City Opera in 1945, when he sang Tonio in a production of Leoncavallo's ''Pagliacci.''
Although he had appeared in New York with black opera companies, starting with a 1934 production of Mascagni's ''Cavalleria Rusticana,'' with the Aeolian Opera, his City Opera debut made him the first black singer to perform opera with a white cast. That debut occurred 10 years before Marian Anderson made her celebrated debut at the Metropolitan Opera. By then he had also appeared at City Opera as Escamillo in Bizet's ''Carmen'' and in the title role of Verdi's ''Rigoletto.''
Mr. Duncan was also a much sought-after recitalist, and often said that recitals interested him more than opera and the theater. In a career that lasted 25 years, he sang 2,000 recitals in 56 countries. He also appeared in two films, ''Syncopation'' in 1942 and ''Unchained'' in 1955.

Todd Duncan, 1903-1998: He Opened Doors for Other Black Classical Singers

Download MP3 (Right-click or option-click the link.)
I'm Shirley Griffith. And I'm Rich Kleinfeldt with the VOA Special English program PEOPLE IN AMERICA.
Today we tell the story of Todd Duncan -- a concert singer and music teacher. He is the man who broke a major color barrier for black singers of classical music.
It is 1945. The place is New York City. The New York City Opera Company just finished performing the Italian opera "Pagliacci."
Todd Duncan is on the stage. He had just become the first African American man to sing with this important American opera company. No one was sure how he would be received. But the people in the theater offered loud, warm approval of his performance.
Duncan did not sing a part written for a black man. Instead, he played a part traditionally sung by a white man. All the other singers in the New York City Opera Company production were white.
His historic performance took place ten years before black singer Marian Anderson performed at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.
Todd Duncan opened doors for other black musicians when he appeared in "Pagliacci." Until that night, black singers of classical music had almost no chance of performing in major American opera houses and theaters. Many African American classical singers of today say they still do not have an equal chance to perform. But Todd Duncan began a major change in classical musical performance in the United States.
Todd Duncan lived a very long life. He was 95 years old when he died in March, 1998 in Washington, D.C. He taught singing until the end of his life.
Robert Todd Duncan was born in 1903 in the southern city of Danville, Kentucky. His mother, Nettie Cooper Duncan, was his first music teacher.
As a young adult, he continued his music studies in Indianapolis, Indiana. He attended both a university and a special music college in this middle western city.
In 1930, he completed more musical education at Columbia University in New York City. Then he moved to Washington. For 15 years, he taught music at Howard University in Washington.
African Americans had gained worldwide fame for their work in popular music -- especially for creating jazz. But not many black musicians were known for writing or performing classical music.
Teaching at Howard gave Duncan the chance to share his knowledge of classical European music with a mainly black student population. He taught special ways to present the music. These special ways became known as the Duncan Technique.


Here Todd Duncan sings "O Tixo, Tixo, Help Me" from the opera "Lost in the Stars" composed by Kurt Weill.
In addition to teaching, Duncan sang in several operas with performers who all were black. But it seemed he always would be known mainly as a concert artist. Duncan sang at least 5,000 and concerts in 50 countries during twenty-five years as a performer.
However, his life took a different turn in the middle 1930s. At that time, the famous American music writer George Gershwin was looking for someone to play a leading part in his new work, "Porgy and Bess."
Gershwin had heard 100 baritones attempt the part. He did not want any of them. Then, the music critic of the New York Times newspaper suggested Todd Duncan.
Duncan almost decided not to try for the part. But he changed his mind. He sang a piece from an Italian opera for Gershwin. He had sung only a few minutes when Gershwin offered him the part. But Duncan was not sure that playing Porgy would be right for him.
Years later, he admitted that he had no idea that George Gershwin was such a successful composer. And, he thought Gershwin wrote only popular music. Duncan almost always had sung classical works, by composers such as Brahms and Schumann.
Todd Duncan said he would have to hear "Porgy and Bess." He did. Then he accepted the part of Porgy. But he said he found it difficult to perform because Porgy has a bad leg and cannot walk. He spends most of the opera on his knees.
Duncan used his special methods to get enough breath to produce beautiful sound. He was able to do this even in the difficult positions demanded by the part.
Here Todd Duncan sings "Porgy's Lament" from the Gershwin opera, "Porgy and Bess."
Todd Duncan sang in the opening production of "Porgy and Bess" in 1935. Then he appeared again as Porgy in 1937 and 1942. He often commented on the fact that he was best known for a part he played for only three years.
His fame as Porgy helped him get the part in "Pagliacci" with the New York City Opera Company. He also sang other parts with the opera company.
Earlier, you heard him sing a song from one of the operas he enjoyed most. The part was that of Stephen Khumalo in "Lost in the Stars." It was a musical version of the famous novel about Africa, "Cry, the Beloved Country" by Alan Paton.
American writer Maxwell Anderson wrote the words for the music by German composer Kurt Weill. Listen as Todd Duncan sings the title song from "Lost in the Stars."
Todd Duncan gained fame as an opera singer and concert artist. But his greatest love in music was teaching. When he stopped teaching at Howard, he continued giving singing lessons in his Washington home until the week before his death.




He taught hundreds of students over the years. Some musicians say they always can recognize students of Todd Duncan. They say people he taught demonstrate his special methods of singing.
Donald Boothman is a singer and singing teacher from the eastern state of Massachusetts. He began studying with Todd Duncan in the 1950s.
Boothman was twenty-two years old at the time. He was a member of the official singing group of the United States Air Force. He had studied music in college. But he studied with Duncan to improve his singing.
Boothman continued weekly lessons with Duncan for 13 years. After that, he would return to Duncan each time he accepted a new musical project.


He says he considered Duncan his teacher for a lifetime. Many other students say they felt that way, too.
Todd Duncan was proud of his students. He was proud of his performances of classical music. And, he was proud of being the first African-American to break the color barrier in a major opera house.
He noted in a V-O-A broadcast in 1990 that blacks are singing in opera houses all over America. "I am happy," he said, "that I was the first one to open the door -- to let everyone know we could all do it."
(MUSIC: "Oh, Lord, I'm on My Way" from "Porgy and Bess")
This Special English program was written by Jerilyn Watson and produced by Lawan Davis. I'm Shirley Griffith. And I'm Rich Kleinfeldt. Listen again next week for another PEOPLE IN AMERICA program on the Voice of America.


Todd Duncan, Anne Brown " Bess, You is My Woman" Original Porgy and Bess (1940)




Todd Duncan sings 'You must be new born again'




Todd Duncan - Lost in the Stars (Original Broadway Cast)




Todd Duncan, Anne Brown " Bess, You is My Woman" Original P

Black Opera Singer Series 4. :Robert McFerrin

Robert McFerrin
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Robert McFerrin Sr.
Robert Keith McFerrin Sr. (March 19, 1921 – November 24, 2006) was an American operatic baritone and the first African-American man to sing at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. His voice was described by critic Albert Goldberg in the Los Angeles Times as "a baritone of beautiful quality, even in all registers, and with a top that partakes of something of a tenor's ringing brilliance." He was the father of Grammy Award-winning vocalist Robert McFerrin, Jr., better known as Bobby McFerrin.

Early years
Born in Marianna, Arkansas, McFerrin showed vocal talent at an early age, singing while still a boy soprano in a local church's gospel choir. As a young teenager he joined two of his siblings in a trio. The three accompanied their father on regional preaching engagements, singing gospel songs, hymns and spirituals. Reverend McFerrin did not wish his son to sing secular music, but in the end this wish was undone by his desire to give him the best possible education.
After McFerrin completed the eighth grade in Memphis, his father sent him to live with his aunt and uncle in St. Louis so he could attend Sumner High School. There, the young man's musical horizons widened. He joined the choir and impressed the director, Wirt Walton, sufficiently that he began teaching McFerrin privately. Walton also arranged for McFerrin's first vocal recital to help him earn funds for his college enrolment.
The Metropolitan Opera
McFerrin had distinguished himself in singing competitions earlier in life, but in 1953 he eclipsed these honors by winning the Metropolitan Opera's "Auditions of the Air", the first African-American to do so. During this time, it was usual for the winner of the "Auditions of the Air" to receive six months' training and a contract to sing at the Met. McFerrin received 13 months training but did not receive a contract. No black person had ever sung on the stage of the Met.
In 1950 the Metropolitan Opera came under the leadership of Sir Rudolf Bing, who was determined to integrate the Met's casting of singers. Marian Anderson made history during Bing's tenure as the first African-American to sing on the Met stage. McFerrin followed with his Met debut in the same month, on January 27, 1955. Thus, McFerrin became the first black man to sing at the Metropolitan Opera. Rarely stated in the great publicity surrounding Marian Anderson's accomplishment is the fact that McFerrin was already engaged to make his debut when Anderson received her contract. With his Rigoletto in 1956 McFerrin became the first African-American in history to sing a title role at the Met. In addition, McFerrin was the first African-American to sing at both the Metropolitan Opera and New York City Opera. He achieved the same distinction with his Rigoletto in Naples at the San Carlo Opera in 1956.
McFerrin's debut role at the Met was Amonasro, the Ethiopian king, in Aida. He sang for three years at the Metropolitan Opera, seven times as Amonasro, once as Valentin in Faust and twice in the title role of the jester in Rigoletto. While Amonasro is black skinned, neither Valentin nor Rigoletto is.
Concerned with the uncertainty of his future in New York, McFerrin resigned his position at the Met in favor of his chances in Hollywood. After 1958 McFerrin appeared no more at the Metropolitan Opera.
McFerrin went to California in 1958 to work on the Otto Preminger movie, Porgy and Bess. The casting plans for this production of the George Gershwin opera slated Sidney Poitier as Porgy. Poitier was to act the role onscreen and lip-synch the musical numbers. McFerrin was engaged to provide Porgy's singing voice. The McFerrins settled in Hollywood that year so that McFerrin could begin working with Sidney Poitier. When the movie was released in 1959, the New York Times stated that, like Poitier's acting, McFerrin's singing was "as sensitive and strong as one could wish." The soundtrack was released as an LP.
McFerrin and his wife set up a vocal studio in Los Angeles and began teaching. In 1959 McFerrin was engaged to teach singing lessons at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, and later he became a voice teacher at Sacramento State College. While they were living in California the McFerrins' marriage ended in divorce. McFerrin credited his ex-wife with helping to support the family while he was beginning his career. She also played as his piano accompanist and helped him learn new music at the keyboard. After 15 years in California, McFerrin moved to St. Louis, Missouri.

In 1973 McFerrin returned to St Louis, the city where he had attended high school; it remained his primary residence for the rest of his life. McFerrin accepted an appointment as Artist-in-Residence at the St. Louis Institute of Music Conservatory, both performing and teaching.
During these years he sang in public with his children. Bobby and Brenda had grown up in a household where music was a major topic of conversation, and where, as Bobby McFerrin recalls, "there was all kinds of music." Both Bobby and Brenda became professional singers, though they chose not to follow their parents' footsteps into the classical field. Bobby became a non-classical singer, conductor, composer and Grammy Award winner. Calling herself a consumer vocalist, Brenda pursued a career as a Motown recording artist. The three sang in 1987 at a benefit concert for the McFerrin Endowment for Minority Artist at the Sheldon Concert Hall.
Although McFerrin sustained a stroke in 1989 which affected his speech, he remained able to sing. In 1993 he appeared with his son and the St. Louis Symphony; Bobby conducted and McFerrin senior sang. He married his second wife, Athena Bush, in 1995.
McFerrin was twice awarded honorary doctorates: in 1987 from Stowe Teacher's College, St. Louis, and in 1989 from the University of Missouri-St. Louis. In 2003 Opera America, in conjunction with the Association of U.S. and International Professional Opera Companies and Opera Volunteers International, honored McFerrin with a Lifetime Achievement Award. He is commemorated by a brass star and bronze plaque embedded in the St. Louis Walk of Fame.
McFerrin suffered a heart attack on November 24, 2006, and died in St. Louis at the age of 85. He is buried at the Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery.

Role model
McFerrin's accomplishments as a black man in the field of classical singing served as an inspiration to singers of color who followed, especially men. Upon McFerrin's death, the African-American tenor, George Shirley, wrote, "Robert McFerrin Sr.'s heart was that of a giant; as one of the world's greatest singers and courageous pioneers, he instilled within me and countless other black males the resolve to pursue our destinies as performers in the profession of grand opera. In spite of the personal hardships he endured, his magnificent voice retained its amazing power and beauty well into his 8th decade..."
His son, Bobby McFerrin, has said in interviews, "His work influenced everything I do musically. When I direct a choir, I go for his sound. His musical influence was absolutely profound. I cannot do anything without me hearing his voice."


My Notes:
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Robert McFerrin baritone sings Cortigiani (Excerpt)




Robert McFerrin - So High (Excerpt)