Betty Allen

Betty Allen ( born March 17, 1927 in Campbell, Ohio, USA, † June 22, 2009 in Mount Pleasant, New York, United States) was an American mezzo - soprano and teacher.

Life

Betty Allen attended Wilberforce University from 1944 to 1946, after which the Hartford School of Music from 1950 to 1953 and the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood. Your mentors during their training were Sarah Peck More, Zinka Milanov and Paul Ulanowsky.

Your first major achievements came during its debut in 1954 as Queenie in Showboat at the New York City Opera and in 1958 in New York Town Hall. This was followed by engagements in London, Oslo, Montreal and Berlin. In 1964 she made ​​her formal operatic debut at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, Argentina. This was followed by engagements in Canada, Mexico City ( 1971) and 1973 at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.

Betty Allen sang with several symphony orchestras, conducted by Leonard Bernstein, Pablo Casals, Lorin Maazel, Charles Munch, Eugene Ormandy, Georg Solti and Leopold Stokowski. Known for their great roles in operas and oratorios she was since 1969 a member of the voice faculty of Manhattan School of Music and the North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston- Salem from 1978 until 1987.

From 1979 to 1992 she was director of the Harlem School of the Arts, the President, she was then.

Betty Allen won the Martha Baird Rockefeller Music Fund Award, the John Hay Whitney and Ford Foundation Award and the Marian Anderson Award. In 1971 she was awarded an honorary doctorate from the Wittenberg University in Ohio in 1981 from Union College in Schenectady, New York. In 1989, she was the first American lecturer to a master class for vocal students at the Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory in St. Petersburg, Russia.