Tag Archives: Singer

October 31, 1896~ American singer and actress Ethel Waters born

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Portrait of Ethel Waters by Luigi Lucioni

1939 / Oil on canvas / 32”x25” / Huntsville Museum of Art, Alabama

[There are three embedded links above]

Luigi Lucioni and his painting of Ethel Waters

Previous October 31 posts:

Autumn~ October 31

Katsushika Hokusai: Born October 31(?), 1760

Artist Birthday Quiz for 10/31~

Nancy Wilson: Born February 20, 1937

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Nancy Wilson’s musical style is so diverse that it is hard to classify. Over the years her repertoire has included pop style ballads, jazz and blues, show tunes and well known standards. Critics have described her as “a jazz singer,” “a blues singer,” “a pop singer,” and “a cabaret singer.” Still others have referred to her as “a storyteller,” “a professor emeritus of body language,” “a consummate actress,” and “the complete entertainer.” Then who is this song stylist (that’s the descriptive title she prefers) whose voice embodies the nuances of gospel, blues, and jazz? Her colleague and long time friend Joe Williams used to call her “the thrush from Columbus.”
FROM http://musicians.allaboutjazz.com/nancywilson

Please note: since we originally posted this, Nancy Wilson passed away, on December 13, 2018.

Leontyne Price: born on February 10, 1927

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Leontyne Price received many honorary degrees as well as the Presidential Medal of Freedom (1965), the Kennedy Center Honors (1980), and the National Medal of Arts (1985). Her many recordings earned nineteen Grammy Awards, and she received a special Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1989. For her performance on Live From Lincoln Center, Leontyne Price, Zubin Mehta and the New York Philharmonic, Price received the 1982 Emmy award for Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program.

Price has been described as a “lirico-spinto” soprano with a 3-1/2 octave range. Her rock-solid vocal technique and purity and her dramatic flair have been combined to create a mix suitable both for the opera and concert stage.

– See more at: http://afrovoices.com/leontyne-price-biography/

Maria Callas: Born December 2, 1923

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colorCallasMaria made her first professional appearance in von Suppe’s Boccacio in 1939 and sang the leading part in Tosca in 1942. After a series of disappointments and resenting envy by her colleagues, she returned to the American land of her birth. She lived there for two years (1945-1947), met the bass Nicola Rossi – Lemeni and through him came to know the tenor Giovanni Zenatello, artistic director of the Arena of Verona. Maria Kalogeropoulos left for Italy, met the industrialist Giovanni Batista Meneghini, married him, became Maria Callas and experienced her artistic life’s curtain raiser without suspecting that she was about to emerge as the lyric theatre’s most brilliant personality.
FROM http://www.hri.org/MFA/thesis/autumn97/callas.html
Callas’ ability to sing such a wide range of roles was one of the things that led to her meteoric rise. But criticcallasPiano Conrad Osborne says it also contained the seeds of her vocal decline. Callas’ voice was already starting to fail her by the time she was in her 40s — quite young for an opera singer. A number of factors, including a rapid loss of weight, may explain why…But for Callas fans like James Jorden, the diva more than made up for her vocal flaws with her talent for bringing the music to life.
FROM http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=123612228
callasPosingBy the time of her retirement, she had performed more than 40 different roles and had recorded more than 20 complete operas. Callas’s personality and philosophy of performance are powerfully depicted in Terrence McNally’s play Master Class (first performed and published 1995), based on her classes at Juilliard.
FROM http://www.britannica.com/biography/Maria-Callas