SMS Music Lessons

Next on our 28 days of Black History in Music is Ms. Leontyne Price, one of the few African American pioneer opera singers of our times.

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Soprano Leontyne Price is widely regarded as the first African American to gain international acclaim as a professional opera singer.
Who Is Leontyne Price?

Renowned for her early stage and television work, Leontyne Price made her opera stage debut at the San Francisco Opera in 1957, and her debut at New York City's Metropolitan Opera House in 1961. One of the first African American singers to earn international acclaim in the field, Price became known for her roles in Il Trovatore, Antony and Cleopatra and Aida, before retiring from the opera in 1985.

Early Life and Influences

Mary Violet Leontyne Price was born on February 10, 1927, in Laurel, Mississippi, to James Anthony Price, a carpenter, and Kate Baker Price, a midwife with a beautiful singing voice. Price showed an interest in music from a young age and was encouraged by her parents. After beginning formal music training at age 5, she spent much of her time singing in the choir at St. Paul Methodist Church in her hometown.

Price found additional inspiration at age 9, when she traveled with her mother to Jackson, Mississippi, to attend a recital by contralto Marian Anderson.

Education and Julliard

Following her time at Oak Park Vocational High School, where she was a standout pianist and member of the glee club, Price enrolled at the College of Education and Industrial Arts in Wilberforce, Ohio. She began her studies focusing on music education, but was later encouraged by faculty to switch her concentration to voice. After graduation, Price headed to New York City to attend The Juilliard School on a full scholarship.

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Day 10 of our Black History in Music we want to acknowledge Ms.

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She earned the moniker ‘High Priestess of Soul’ for she could weave a spell so seductive and hypnotic that the listener lost track of time and space as they became absorbed in the moment. She was who the world would come to know as Nina Simone.

When Nina Simone died on April 21, 2003, she left a timeless treasure trove of musical magic spanning over four decades from her first hit, the 1959 Top 10 classic “I Loves You Porgy,” to “A Single Woman,” the title cut from her one and only 1993 Elektra album. While thirty-three years separate those recordings, the element of honest emotion is the glue that binds the two together – it is that approach to every piece of work that became Nina’s uncompromising musical trademark.

Born Eunice Kathleen Waymon in Tryon, North Carolina on February 21st, 1933, Nina’s prodigious talent as a musician was evident early on when she started playing piano by ear at the age of three. Her mother, a Methodist minister, and her father, a handyman and preacher himself, couldn’t ignore young Eunice’s God-given gift of music.

Raised in the church on the straight and narrow, her parents taught her right from wrong, to carry herself with dignity, and to work hard. She played piano – but didn’t sing – in her mother’s church, displaying remarkable talent early in her life.

Able to play virtually anything by ear, she was soon studying classical music with an Englishwoman named Muriel Mazzanovich, who had moved to the small southern town. It was from these humble roots that Eunice developed a lifelong love of Johann Sebastian Bach, Chopin, Brahms, Beethoven and Schubert.

After graduating valedictorian of her high school class, the community raised money for a scholarship for Eunice to study at Julliard in New York City before applying to the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.

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