Margaret Tynes is an African American opera, concert, and oratorio soprano and singing actress. Tynes was born on September 11, 1919 to parents Rev. and Mrs. J. W. Tynes, in Saluda, Virginia. She earned a Bachelor’s Degree from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University in 1939. While there she … Read MoreMargaret Tynes (1919-2024)
Operatic soprano Camilla Williams was born October 18, 1919, in Danville, Virginia to Fannie Carey Williams and Cornelius Booker Williams. The youngest of four siblings, Williams began singing at a young age and was performing at her local church by age eight. At age 12, she began taking … Read MoreCamilla Williams (1919-2012)
Leona Mitchell is an operatic soprano singer who was the lead soprano singer for the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, New York for eighteen years. She is also a Grammy Award winner for the Best Opera Recording in 1977. Mitchell was born on October 13, 1949 in Enid, Oklahoma, which was … Read MoreLeona Mitchell (1949- )
“Image Ownership: Public Domain” Multi-talented Noah Griffin Jr. has had a concomitant many-faceted career: historian, writer, newspaper columnist, radio and television talk show host, law editor, press secretary, campaign manager, lyricist, and vocalist. Griffin was born in San Francisco, California, on January 31, 1946, to … Read MoreNoah Webster Griffin Jr. (1946– )
“Image Ownership: Public Domain” Concert pianist, composer, and music conservatory director José Manuel Jiménez Berroa was born on December 7, 1855, into a musical family in Trinidad, Cuba, a city on the central coast known for its mainly African-descended population, sugar mills, and tobacco production. … Read MoreJosé Manuel Jiménez Berroa (1855–1917)
George Shirley is an educator, lecturer, and internationally acclaimed tenor whose leading roles in 28 operas with the Metropolitan Opera (“Met”) for 11 seasons helped push open doors on operatic stages for many African American tenors. In 1956 Shirley became the first African American member … Read MoreGeorge Irving Shirley (1934- )
“Image Ownership: Public Domain” Thomas J. Bowers, businessman, pianist, and activist, was best known as an African American opera singer, who was compared favorably with the leading world tenors of the mid-nineteenth century. Bowers was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1823, one of John C. … Read MoreThomas J. Bowers (1823-1885)
Mary Cardwell Dawson established the National Negro Opera Company (NNOC) in 1941 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Born in North Carolina, Dawson graduated from the New England Conservatory of Music in 1925, the only African American in her class. Facing discrimination in her aspiration for a career … Read MoreNational Negro Opera Company (1941-1962)
Larry Everston Brownlee, Jr., one of six children, was born on November 24, 1972 in Youngstown, Ohio. His father, a General Motors plant worker who was also choir director at Phillips Chapel Church of God in Christ, commanded his son to perform so often that … Read MoreLawrence E. Brownlee Jr. (1972- )
Image Ownership: Public Domain In the article below Hilary Burrage, Executive Chair of the Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Foundation, a United Kingdom (UK)-based non-profit organisation, describes the composer and how she came to regard and preserve his work and legacy. It has taken three times the … Read MoreSamuel Coleridge-Taylor: For His Times and Ours
