NEW YORK (AP) — Jessye Norman, the renowned international opera star whose passionate soprano voice won her four Grammy Awards, the National Medal of Arts and the Kennedy Center Honor, has died, according to family spokesperson Gwendolyn Quinn. She was 74. A statement released to The Associated Press on Monday said Norman died at 7:54 […]
Baritone opera singer Todd Duncan made history by becoming the first African-American to sing with a major American opera company, and the first to perform with an all-white cast. Duncan was also a music professor at Howard University during a period where his career was just beginning to take off. Born Robert Todd Duncan on […]
Opera is an arena dominated by Europeans, but Blacks have made their mark on it as well. Robert McFerrin Sr. was the first to sing in an opera at New York’s Metropolitan Opera in 1955. The late baritone, who is the father of vocalist extraordinaire Robert “Bobby” McFerrin Jr., paved the way for the […]
