Concert music

By: Mildred Denby Green

Source:

 Black Women in America, Second Edition

Concert music

Black women have been a part of the music in their society in various ways. They have been performers and teachers, as well as creators of music. As such, they were more prevalent in their field at the beginning of the twenty-first century than during any other period in music history. During slavery, black women assumed prominence as musicians. They were usually associated with the church, which held a central place in the lives of black people. In the nineteenth century, especially during the transition from slavery to freedom, blacks sought respect through intellectual pursuits such as the study of music. Young black women learned to play the piano and sing, and a number of important and noteworthy performers came out of this period.

In the decade before their emancipation, black performers, many of whom were women, gave concerts. Most of the women performers were singers and, though not allowed to sing in opera houses of the United States, were often successful in American concerts and in Europe, appearing in front of the royalty of that continent. Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield, the first black American concert singer, was called the “Black Swan” because of her beautiful and graceful voice. She made her debut in Buffalo, New York, in 1851. She then toured the United States and a few years later studied in England. She toured that country and gave a command performance for Queen Victoria. When she returned to the United States, she retired after a relatively short concert career and opened a studio in Philadelphia to teach singing. In addition to teaching, Greenfield formed an opera troupe that gave work to other black musicians. Sarah Sedgwick Bowers was another concert soprano who performed during the 1850s. She was called the “Colored Nightingale.” There is documentation of black women instrumentalists who performed in the late 1800s. The pianist and harpist Myrtle Hart, for example, played at the British exhibit at the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago.

After emancipation, a number of outstanding black women singers impressed audiences with their skills as concert artists. Two sisters, the soprano Anna M. Hyers and the contralto Emma L. Hyers, made their debut in Sacramento, California, and won great critical praise. They formed a touring company after performing widely in the western and northern regions of the United States. Marie Smith Selika, also known as the “Queen of Staccato” and as Madame Selika (a name taken from the leading female character in Meyerbeer's L'Africaine), gave a command performance for Queen Victoria. The soprano Matilda Sissieretta Joyner Jones was probably the most famous singer of this period. She was compared with the reigning Italian diva of the time, Adelina Patti. Called the “Black Patti,” Sissieretta Jones sang throughout Europe, Asia, and Africa and performed for royalty there as well as in America for President Benjamin Harrison. A contemporary of Jones, Flora Batson, also toured throughout the world. She was called the “Double-Voiced Queen of Song “ because of her enormously wide vocal range.

Hazel Lucille Harrison, concert painist. This photograph is inscribed to “dear Mrs. Young,” 18 December 1924.

Charles Young Collection, National Afro-American Museum and Cultural Center; Ohio Historical Society

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At the beginning of the 1900s, opportunities for women to develop other musical talents grew, and the number of black women concert performers in areas other than vocal music expanded. The first black woman concert pianist was Hazel Lucille Harrison. She won acclaim both abroad and in the United States. Helen Hagan, also a pianist, was the first black pianist to earn a bachelor of music degree from Yale University. She toured extensively until the 1930s, after which she began teaching in black colleges.

Black female vocalists continued to develop their talents. Outstanding black women concert singers of this time included Florence Cole Talbert (McCleave), the first black woman to sing the title role in Verdi's Aida, a part she sang in Cozenza, Italy, in 1927. Afterward, she sang throughout Southern Italy. Lillian Evanti was among the first black Americans to sing abroad and to sing with a European opera company. She sang in France and Italy with the Nice Opera to critical reviews as well as at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. In 1934, she was invited by Eleanor Roosevelt to sing at the White House. Abbie Mitchell, a celebrated singer and actress, was a member of the original cast of George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, creating the role of Clara. Wife of the well-known composer and violinist Will Marion Cook, Mitchell was multitalented and able to move from classical music to vaudeville to acting in serious drama. During her travels abroad, she participated in command performances before King Edward VII and Czar Nicholas of Russia. As an actress, she appeared with Tallulah Bankhead in The Little Foxes and in Coquette with Helen Hayes. Caterina Jarboro sang with opera companies in Europe and the United States. In 1930, she performed Aida in Milan. In 1932, she returned to the United States and performed Aida with the Chicago Civic Opera, making her the first black to sing with a major opera company. Ann Brown, who was the original Bess in Gershwin's folk opera, had an extensive concert career. She traveled throughout Europe and eventually permanently settled in Norway. Etta Moten also played Bess. She performed widely in concerts and worked in musicals, films, radio, and television.

One of the most famous black women musicians of the twentieth century was the internationally recognized contralto Marian Anderson. The conductor Arturo Toscanini told Anderson that hers was a voice one hears once in a hundred years. She enjoyed a long and illustrious concert career until she retired in 1965. Eva Jessye and Florence B. Price were among other well-known black women musicians of the early twentieth century. Jessye, a choral conductor and composer, was chosen by Gershwin to direct the Porgy and Bess chorus. She was also chosen by Virgil Thomson to prepare the chorus for the premiere of his Four Saints in Three Acts. Price, the first black woman to receive international recognition as a composer, was also a concert pianist.

There were a number of black women active as concert musicians from the 1940s to the 1960s. These included soprano Dorothy Maynor, who toured widely in the United States and aboard. Koussevitzky gave Maynor great public praise after he heard her in 1939. His statement boosted her career, much as did Toscanini's endorsement of Anderson. After her retirement, Maynor founded a school of the arts for children in Harlem. Camilla Williams, a soprano, is considered to have been the definitive Bess, but she never sang the role on stage; she recorded it for Columbia Records and set a standard for that role. Williams was also credited as the first black singer to receive a full-season contract with a major American opera company. She gained that distinction as a result of her performance in Madame Butterfly with the New York City Opera in 1946. Mattiwilda Dobbs, a coloratura, won national and international recognition in the opera world. She was the first black singer to sing with the San Francisco Opera, debuted at the Metropolitan Opera one year after Anderson, was the first black singer to perform at La Scala, and was summoned to sing in London when the king and queen of Sweden visited the British royal family. Carol Brice, a contralto, also received a more-than-favorable endorsement from Koussevitzky. She toured throughout the United States, Europe and South America with her brother, Jonathan Brice, as her accompanist. Called the “new Marian Anderson,” she was considered one of the foremost singers of her time.

Philippa Schuyler, composer and pianist, photographed in the 1950s or 1960s.

Library of Congress

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Pianists of this era included Natalie Hinderas and Philippa Duke Schuyler. Hinderas promoted the music of African Americans in her piano concerts. She successfully combined a performing career with a teaching career at Temple University in Philadelphia, and also performed on television and made several recordings. Schuyler was a child prodigy who performed extensively. She composed and served as a correspondent in Vietnam, where she tragically died in a helicopter crash. Julia Perry, composer and orchestral conductor, received critical acclaim for her orchestral concerts in Europe during the 1950s. As a composer, she used an eclectic musical language, and her style extended from the moderately dissonant standard harmonic expression of her early works to the more dissonant unorthodox harmonies of her later compositions.

An Increasing Presence

The 1960s to the 1990s brought an even larger number of African American women musicians to the concert arena. Following Marian Anderson's debut at the Metropolitan Opera House in the mid-1950s, several African American women performed as principal singers there as well as with other opera companies. Most renowned among the many divas of international fame were Leontyne Price, Grace Bumbry, Shirley Verrett, Martina Arroyo, Betty Allen, and Hilda Harris.

Leontyne Price began her performing career in the early 1950s in revivals of Thomson's Four Saints in Three Acts and Gershwin's Porgy and Bess. Although she performed in several televised operas, including the title role in Puccini's Tosca in 1955, it was not until 1961 that she made her Metropolitan Opera debut—to rave reviews. Grace Bumbry was the first black singer to perform a major role at the Bayreuth Festival in Germany. She sang the part of Venus in Wagner's Tannhäuser in 1961 at the request of Wagner's grandson. She had made her Paris debut one year earlier. Her American debut was in Chicago in 1963, and her Metropolitan Opera debut was in 1965. Shirley Verrett's debut at the Metropolitan came three years later, following her Covent Garden debut in London in 1967.

Betty Allen, a mezzo-soprano, made her Town Hall debut in New York City in 1958. She had impressed Leonard Bernstein in a performance at the Berkshire Music Festival, and he invited her to sing in his Jeremiah Symphony. Allen toured widely in the United States and abroad and recorded extensively. Another mezzo-soprano, Hilda Harris, made her concert debut at Carnegie Hall during an engagement on Broadway with Angela Lansbury in Mame. She toured extensively in the United States and in Europe as a recitalist and as a soloist in oratorios and with symphony orchestras. In Switzerland at St. Gallen, she made her operatic debut singing the title role in Bizet's Carmen. She then sang with several opera companies both in America and abroad. Harris joined the New York City Opera in 1974. She made her Metropolitan Opera House debut in 1977.

In the last decades of the twentieth century, African American women singers continued to perform throughout the world. Many developed careers as recording artists. Jessye Norman, considered one of the world's finest sopranos, performed abroad and throughout the United States. In addition to being selected to sing the French national anthem in 1989 for the bicentennial celebration of the French Revolution, she sang for a number of years with the Deutsche Oper in Berlin. She performed with other European opera companies until she changed the focus of her career to the concert stage.

Other black women concert and opera singers of the late twentieth century included Kathleen Battle, Leona Mitchell, and Denyce Graves. Kathleen Battle won acclaim in the United States and abroad for her successful opera and recital performances. Battle, a lyric coloratura, also recorded extensively. Leona Mitchell, a lyric soprano with dramatic power (a spinto soprano), received praise for her performances in the United States and abroad. She appeared often in major opera houses, including Covent Garden in England, the Rome Opera in Italy, the Sydney Opera in Australia, the San Francisco Opera, and the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. Denyce Graves, acclaimed throughout the world as a vocal star, performed in the world's major opera houses and concert halls. She made her Metropolitan debut in the title role of Bizet's Carmen during the 1995 season. On several occasions, she was invited to perform in recital at the White House. Her wide repertoire allowed her to work with the foremost symphony orchestras and conductors across the world.

Four Distinguished Musicians: Marian Anderson (seated) with (left to right) Jessye Norman, James Levine, and Kathleen Battle.

Annenberg Rare Book and Manuscript Library

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From the 1970s onward, more African American women concert musicians performed outside the vocal realm. As opportunities opened, more and more African American women entered the fields of composition conducting and instrumental performance as full-time endeavors. Until the turn of the twentieth century, most musicians interested in these areas were associated with an educational institution as a main source of employment. African American women instrumentalists included D. Antoinette Handy (Miller), a concert flutist, who played in orchestras in Paris and Geneva as well as in the United States. She toured Germany and America with Trio ProViva, a group she founded, whose programs featured the music of black composers. Frances Walker (Slocum), a pianist, performed throughout the United States, the West Indies, and Europe. She recorded works by African Americans with Orion Records and was a member of the New World Ensemble, which toured New York colleges. Another performer, Gail Hightower, a bassoonist, performed with symphony orchestras in the United States and in Italy. She founded the Universal Symphony in 1978 in New York.

Other instrumentalists included Nina Kennedy, a pianist who performed with several symphony orchestras and extensively in concerts, and Frances Cole, harpsichordist, pianist, and violinist, who attracted attention as a performer before her untimely death in 1983. Ann Hobson, symphonic harpist, was in a great minority as aharp recitalist. Jacqueline B. Hairston, a pianist, was a composer and arranger who was also recognized as a vocal coach. The composer Dorothy Rudd Moore wrote in a variety of forms. Her works included symphonies, chamber music, opera, and piano and other instrumental works. Lena McLin was a composer of vocal and choral music, and Jeraldine Herbison composed several instrumental chamber works featuring strings.

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