Music Archives - Page 34 of 35

Diorbhail Nic a’ Bhriuthainn

Diorbhail Nic a’ Bhriuthainn was a Scottish Gaelic poet and songwriter who lived on the Isle of Luing in Scotland.

Lucia Lucas is a baritone opera singer who made history in March 2018, when it was announced that she would be the first female (transgender) baritone to perform a principal role in an American opera production. The premiere performance on May 3 2019 saw Lucas singing the title role in Mozart’s Don Giovanni with the Tulsa Opera in Oklahoma; it is the subject of the 2020 feature documentary The Sound of Identity.
Lucas is also the first transgender baritone to appear with the English National Opera in London on 5 October 2019, singing Public Opinion in Orpheus in the Underworld. She has performed all over the world, including in Dublin, London, Brussels, Berlin, Torino, Essen, Daegu and Korea. She has performed roles including Hagen in the world premiere of Surrogate/Götterdämmerung, Monterone in Rigoletto, Tchelio in Love of Three Oranges, Komtur in Don Giovanni, and the Ffour Villains in Les contes d‘Hoffmann all with Oper Wuppertal; Sharpless in Madama Butterfly with Lyric Opera of Dublin, and Escamillo in Carmen with Staatstheater Karlsruhe. As a five-year festival artist with Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe, Lucas also performed roles including Thoas in Iphigénie en Aulide, Ford in Falstaff, Marcello in La bohème, Varlaam in Boris Godunov, Kothner in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Dr. Teller in Doctor Atomic, Sprecher in Die Zauberflöte, and Figaro in Le nozze di Figaro.

Abbey Lincoln

Jazz singer, songwriter, actress, and civil rights activist Anna Marie Wooldridge, known professionally as Abbey Lincoln, made a career of performing both beloved standards and her own original material. Her lyrics often referenced aspects of the American Civil Rights Movement and, later in her career, more philosophical themes.
Her 1957 debut album, Abbey Lincoln’s Affair – A Story of a Girl in Love, was followed by a trio of albums for Riverside Records (1957-1959). In 1960 she sang on the landmark civil rights-focused recording, We Insist! After a tour of Africa in the mid-1970s, she adopted the name Aminata Moseka.
Although she only released a few records during the 1980s, she fulfilled a 10-album contract with Verve Records from the 1990s until her death in 2010, releasing some of her most highly regarded work in her 60s and 70s. In 2003, Lincoln received a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master Award.
She was also an actor who appeared in television shows and movies such as The Girl Can’t Help It and Gentleman Prefer Blondes. She co-starred in the independent film Nothing But a Man (1964), an independent film written and directed by Michael Roemer. She recieved a Golden Globe nomination for her her co-starring role in For Love of Ivy (1968). Her television work included appearing in Alice Childress’s Wine in the Wilderness, one of 10 episodes of individual dramas written, produced and performed by African-Americans, “On Being Black” produced in 1969 for WGBH-TV Boston.

Zillah Castle

Zillah Castle was an acclaimed New Zealand violinist and collector of musical items.
In 1930, Zillah earned 190 out of a possible 200 in her LRSM (Licentiate of the Royal Schools of Music) diploma examinations; at the time it was reportedly the highest pass mark awarded to any candidate. Her reward was a violin scholarship to London’s Royal College of Music, where she studied from 1931 to 1934, when she returned to Wellington. Zillah soon earned a reputation as a talented violinist, performing as a soloist, with orchestras and for radio broadcasts. A supporter of modern violin works, she was the first person in New Zealand to perform Vaughan Williams’s The lark ascending. She gave music lessons, teaching hundreds of Wellington children over the years, and mentored pupils who graduated to orchestra ranks. Zillah and her brother Ronald, a bassoonist, also performed in concerts for schools. In the 1930s, with their sister Mona playing viola da gamba, Zillah playing viola d’amore and Ronald on the recorder, they formed what is believed to be New Zealand’s first baroque music ensemble to use instruments of the period.
Neither Ronald nor Zillah ever married married, preferring to continue the musical traditions centred on the family home in Colombo Street, Newtown, which housed their extraordinary collection of early and unusual musical instruments. It has been described as the largest private collection of its type in Oceania, with more than 500 items including every imaginable non-electronic mechanism capable of producing a musical note. Many were gifted to the siblings from people who wanted a good home for an unwanted instrument. The collection, which grew evolved into a private museum, contained functioning examples of every member of the violin family, as well as didgeridoos, a zuffolo, harpsichords and a crwth, harps, tablas, a sáhnāī, horns, trumpets, clarinets, a hurdy-gurdy and hundreds of other pieces. The majority of the collection was purchased by the Auckland Museum in 1998.
The Castles also collected textbooks and volumes of rare music, which are now part of the Alexander Turnbull Library collection, as well as many works of art, and a collection of dolls, toys and children’s books and magazines.

Pauline Walburga

Pauline Clémentine Marie Walburga, Princess of Metternich-Winneburg zu Beilstein was a famous Austrian socialite who played an central role in the social and cultural life of Dresden and Paris, and, after 1871, Vienna. Renowned for her great charm and elegance as well as for her social commitment, she was an significant promoter of composers Richard Wagner, Bedřich Smetana and Franz Liszt. She was also a key figure in the creation of the haute couture industry; she introduced fashion designer Charles Frederick Worth to the French Empress Eugenie in 1860, starting his rise to fame.

Abbie Mitchell

Abbie Mitchell was an African-American soprano opera singer who performed the role of Clara in the original production of George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess in 1935, and was also the first to record “Summertime” from that musical. At age 14, she was cast by African-American composer Will Marion Cook and lyricist Paul Laurence Dunbar for a role in their one-act musical comedy Clorindy: The Origin of the Cakewalk (1898), which ran for the whole season at the Casino Roof Garden. The 14-year-old married the 29-year-old Cook in 1898 and bore him two children before her 20th birthday. Mitchell appeared in the lead role in Cook’s Jes Lak White Folks (1899) and performed in his production The Southerners (1904).
In London Mitchell appeared in the 1903 musical In Dahomey (with music by Cook). Mitchell received international acclaim for her performance, and was invited to appear with the company in a Royal Command Performance for King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra at Buckingham Palace.
She later performed with the “Black Patti’s Troubadours”, and in the 1908 operetta The Red Moon. In 1913, she appeared in the film Lime Kiln Field Day, but it was never completed or released. In 1919, Mitchell went to Europe with Cook’s Southern Syncopated Orchestra, as well as appearing in concert and in operas in New York.
Mitchell appeared in several Broadway plays including “In Abraham’s Bosom” (1926), “Coquette” (1927) with Helen Hayes, and “The Little Foxes” (1939) with Tallulah Bankhead. Mitchell was best known for her last musical role on the stage, performing in the role of “Clara” in the premiere of Porgy and Bess (1935). After this, she taught and coached many singers in New York and appeared in non-musical dramatic roles on the stage, and taught at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama.
Lee De Forest made a short film of Mitchell singing, Songs of Yesteryear (1922), using his DeForest Phonofilm sound-on-film process; the film is preserved in the Library of Congress’s Maurice Zouary film collection.

Élisabeth Sophie Chéron

Although Élisabeth-Sophie Chéron is best remembered today as a painter, she was actually a true Renaissance woman, acclaimed during her lifetime as a talented poet, musician, artist, and academicienne. In her childhood, she was trained by her father in the arts of enamelling and miniature painting. Under the sponsorship of the prominent artist Charles Le Brun, she was admitted to the Académie Royale of Paris as a portrait painter in 1672. She exhibited regularly at the Salon in Paris, while also producing poetry and translations; she was fluent in Hebrew, Greek and Latin. Chéron’s literary talent was recognized in 1694 when she was named a member of Italy’s Accademia dei Ricovrati in Padua, and given the academician name of Erato, after the muse of lyric and love poetry.

Ada Jemima Crossley

Contralto singer Madame Ada Crossley had her professional debut in Sydney in January 1892. Sheleft Australia in March 1894 to study in Europe, after giving farewell concerts in Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide. In Europe, she studied with Sir Charles Santley in London and later in Paris with Madame Marchesi, and made her London debut at the Queen’s Hall in May 1895. In 1902 and 1903, Crossley toured the United States, recording for the Victor Gramophone Companies Red Seal Celebrity series. She thentoured Australia and New Zealand, returning to England via South Africa (1903-1904) and subsequently returned to Australia for a series of concerts in 1908-1909. During the First World War she sang at benefit concerts, then limited her professional engagements after the war.
Singing in English, German, French, Italian, Norwegian, Danish and Russian, Crossley claimed a repertoire of 500 sacred songs and ballads, ranging from Gluck and Handel to Richard Strauss.

Wanda Landowska

Wanda Aleksandra Landowska was a Polish harpsichordist and pianist whose performances, teaching, writings and especially her many recordings helped revitalize the popularity of the harpsichord in the early 1900s. She was the first person to record Johann Sebastian Bach’s Goldberg Variations on the harpsichord in 1933. She conducted extensive research on all aspects of 17th- and 18th-century music, and published her book Musique ancienne in 1909. Landowska toured throughout Europe performing Bach concertos on harpsichord; these concerts, combined with her research, and writings spurred the 20-century revival of the instrument and the development of modern harpsichord technique. Landowska also taught classes at conservatories in Berlin and Paris, and in 1925 founded her own school, the École de Musique Ancienne (School of Ancient Music), north of Paris at Saint-Leu-la-Fôret. In 1940, she and her domestic partner, Denise Restout, fled the Nazi invasion of France. Her home in Saint-Leu was looted, and her instruments and manuscripts stolen, so she arrived in the United States essentially with no assets. She went on to re-establish herself as a performer and teacher in the United States, touring extensively. After her death in 1959, her longtime domestic partner Restout edited and translated her writings and music, preserving Landowska’s artistic legacy.

Zelia N. Breaux

Zelia N. Breaux was an American music teacher and musician who played the trumpet, violin and piano. She organized the first music department at Oklahoma’s Langston University, as well as the school’s first orchestra. As the Supervisor of Music for segregated African-American schools in Oklahoma City, Breaux organized bands, choral groups and orchestras, establishing a music teacher in each of the district’s schools. She had a significant influence on many musicians including Charlie Christian and Jimmy Rushing, as well as novelist Ralph Ellison. Breaux was the first woman president of the Oklahoma Association of Negro Teachers and was posthumously inducted into the Oklahoma YWCA Hall of Fame, Oklahoma Women’s Hall of Fame and the Oklahoma Bandmasters Association Hall of Fame.