Anne Wiggins Brown (8/09/1912 - 3/13/2009) was the first African American voice student at Julliard. While still a student she worked with George Gershwin as he was writing Porgy and Bess, greatly expanding the role of Bess, which she played on Broadway. While on tour she refused to sing for segregated audiences, thus integrating Washingtons National Theater for one night in 1936. She spent most of her career in Europe, becoming a Norwegian citizen in 1948. A native of Baltimore, Maryland, Annie Wiggins Brown was the daughter of Dr. Harry F. Brown, a physician, and his wife, the former Mary Allen Wiggins.[2] Her father was the grandson of a slave and her mothers parents were of black, Cherokee Indian, and Scottish-Irish origins.[3] She had three sisters.[4] As a young child, Brown showed a great musical talent and according to family legend she could sing a perfect scale at just 9 months old.[dubious – discuss] As an African-American, she was not allowed to attend a Roman Catholic elementary school in her native Baltimore.[5] She trained at Morgan College and then applied to the Peabody Institute, but was rejected from the school due to her race.[6] Brown then applied to the Juilliard School in New York at the encouragement of the wife of the owner of The Baltimore Sun.[5] She was admitted to Juilliard when she was 16, becoming the first African-American vocalist to attend there. She was awarded Juilliards Margaret McGill scholarship when she was 20 years old.[3] At the age of nineteen she married a fellow Juilliard student, but the marriage soon ended in divorce.[3][7] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Brown
Posted on: Sat, 30 Aug 2014 13:45:01 +0000
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