Marian Anderson

Marian Anderson ( born February 27, 1897 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, † April 8, 1993 in Portland, Oregon) was an American opera singer in the vocal range alto.

Life

Marian Anderson, the daughter of a Stückeis and coal merchant and a teacher, sang with the age of six in the Baptist church choir of Philadelphia. But you got until she was 17 years a proper musical education. In 1925 she won among 300 applicants first prize in a singing competition and could then occur with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. In the early 1930s, she went on tour in Europe, and has performed in places such as Berlin, London, Paris, Spain, Poland, Italy, Latvia and Russia. Among other things, before the monarchs of Norway, Sweden, England and Denmark. The composer Jean Sibelius and the conductor Arturo Toscanini, who conducted some concerts for her, praising her voice -a-century talent.

1939 prevented the Conservative Women's Association Daughters of the American Revolution (, Daughters of the American Revolution ') a scheduled appearance on stage by Anderson in the Constitution Hall in Washington, DC because of their skin color. Then came Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of the then President Franklin D. Roosevelt, in protest against the racial discrimination of the organization. The Roosevelt organized in sequence on Easter Sunday, April 9, 1939, in front of the Lincoln Memorial is an open -air concert, which was attended by around 75,000 people.

On January 7, 1955 Marian Anderson appeared as Ulrica in Verdi's Un ballo in maschera as a soloist at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City as until then first African American singer to.

1958 Marian Anderson represented as emissaries of the United States at the United Nations. In 1961 she sang during the inauguration of John F. Kennedy as a sign of the intended equality of African Americans the national anthem. In 1963, she gave Kennedy the Presidential Medal of Freedom (Freedom Medal). 1965 Marian Anderson ended her career and lived in retirement with her husband, architect Orpheus Fischer, on a farm in Connecticut. In 1970 she was awarded an honorary doctorate from Michigan State University. In 1978, she received the Gold Medal of the U.S. Congress. In 1991, she received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award for her life's work.

Marian Anderson was a remarkable song singer. My accompanist was in 1940 to 1965, the German - American pianist Franz Rupp.