Bessie Smith
Acknowledged as one of the greatest blues singers of the twentieth century, Bessie Smith reigned as the “Empress of the Blues” throughout most of the 1920s.
Category Archives: Music > Singer
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Nancy Agag
Sudanese singer-songwriter and recording artist Nancy Agag combines songs from older Sudanese musicians with her own compositions.
Marietta Alboni
Italian contralto singer
Bathia Stuart
She was one of the first New Zealand women to enter the male-dominated field of film-making.
Sorcha Ní Ghuairim
Columnist, newspaper editor and promoter of the Irish language
Brigid Tunney
Coming from a family of renowned singers, she acquired a great number of traditional ballads, learnt from both sides of her family. Possessing a beautifully articulated voice with a considerable range, she was extensively recorded with other members of her family in 1952 by Sean O’Boyle and Peter Kennedy for the BBC. She was important for passing on a wide range of material to the younger generation, a great deal of which could have been forgotten at a time when folk music had apparently fallen out of fashion.
Rosina Buckman
Rosina Buckman is remembered for her infinite capacity for taking pains, for allowing nothing to interfere with her work, and above all for her unwavering dedication to the art of singing.
Malvina Major
Soprano Malvina Major sang Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia at the 1968 and 1969 Salzburg Festivals in Austria and attracted the interest of Covent Garden and Glyndebourne in England. However, she chose to live in her home country, where she built up a large and devoted audience.
IW note: Major established the Dame Malvina Major Foundation in 1991 to support education through awards and provide training for young New Zealanders in the performing arts.
Margaret Medlyn
From the 1990s soprano Margaret Medlyn managed to fulfil engagements with such companies as Covent Garden, the English National Opera and the Vienna State Opera from her home base in New Zealand.
Erihapeti Rehu-Murchie
Erihapeti Rehu-Murchie was a Ngāi Tahu (or Kāi Tahu) leader and woman of mana, and a prominent activist in the fields of Māori welfare and health from the 1970s to the 1990s. She was a long-serving member and president of the Māori Women’s Welfare League, and an acclaimed researcher in the area of Māori women’s health. She also served on the Human Rights Commission and in a wide variety of other public positions. An accomplished actor, singer and orator, she also composed waiata and poetry.