Born Robert Todd Duncan in Danville, Kentucky in 1903, Todd Duncan was the first African American to perform in an otherwise all-white cast in the New York City Opera’s production of Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci. He began his professional stage career in 1933 in Pietro Mascagni’s Cavalleria … Read MoreTodd Duncan (1903-1998)
Black Swan Records was the first black-owned recording company that sold popular music to black audiences. Black Swan Records specialized in jazz and blues recordings, but it also became the first company to record black classical musicians. During its brief existence from 1921 and 1923, … Read MoreBlack Swan Records (1921-1923)
Compared at the time to his more famous colleague, Paul Robeson, and heralded by major publicity outlets of his day as one of black America’s most exceptional baritone vocalists, singer-actor Kenneth Spencer was one of the most prominent black artists of the early 20th Century. … Read MoreKenneth Spencer (1913-1964)
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 … Read MoreLillian Evans Annie/Evanti (1891-1967)
Paul Douglas Freeman has conducted outstanding classical orchestras in many countries during his long career. One of the few African American conductors in the field of classical music, he is best known for his founding of the Chicago Sinfonietta, a classical orchestra widely recognized during … Read MorePaul Freeman (1936- )
The African American conductor James DePreist was the nephew of the singer Marian Anderson. DePreist was the Permanent Conductor of the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, Laureate Music Director of the Oregon Symphony, and Director of Conducting and Orchestral Studies at the Juilliard School. DePreist has … Read MoreJames DePreist (1936-2013)
Joseph de Bologne was born December 25, 1745 on a plantation near Basse-Terre, on the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe. His mother was Anne Nanon, slave-mistress of his father, the nobleman George de Bologne de Saint-Georges. He was educated in France, where his father became … Read MoreJoseph de Bolonge/Le Chevalier de Saint-Georges (1745-1799)
Sissieretta Jones was a world-famous soprano who in June 1892 became the first African American to perform at Carnegie Hall in New York City, New York. Touring internationally in the late 1800s and early 1900s, she sang both classical opera and performed in musical comedies … Read MoreSissieretta Jones (1869-1933)
Andre Watts is the subject of one of the more memorable stories in American music. In 1963, the 16 year old high school student won a piano competition to play in the New York Philharmonic’s Young People’s Concert at Lincoln Center, conducted by Leonard Bernstein. … Read MoreAndre Watts (1946- )
Born a slave in 1819 in Natchez, Mississippi, Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield had little reason to dream of the life that would eventually become her own. Because of a series of unlikely circumstances and her own relentless efforts she would eventually become known as the first … Read MoreElizabeth Taylor Greenfield (1819-1876)
