Dakota Beacon

Having just bid farewell to Jose Jose, one of the world’s greatest singers this weekend, we now say goodbye also to Jessye Norman, who died yesterday of complications from a spinal cord injury suffered in 2015.  She once said, when asked by an interviewer to categorize her music, “Pigeon holes are comfortable only for pigeons,” pointing up the wide variety of her musical interests. She lived her philosophy, masterfully performing works by classic composers from Purcell to Poulenc and jazz greats from Duke Ellington to Michel Legrand.  

Norman was born in Augusta, Georgia, to a father who was in the insurance business and a mother who was an amateur musician and who insisted Jessye have piano lessons.  As a gift for her ninth birthday she received something which would determine her future - a radio. She discovered the Saturday afternoon broadcasts of the Metropolitan Opera and became an avid fan.  Her idols were Leontyne Price and Marian Anderson. Her entry at age 16 in a competition, although she did not win it, led to a scholarship to study at Howard University in Washington, D.C., with further study at Baltimore’s Peabody Conservatory and the University of Michigan.

Like many American singers of that era, the 1960’s, she chose to establish her operatic career in Europe before attempting to conquer American opera audiences.  As a principal singer with the Deutsche Oper Berlin she was warmly received and became especially associated with roles characterized by a regal bearing.  

Norman found time to explore many musical genres - seemingly even rejecting the concept of “genres”.  To her it was all music. She was truly an adventurer as a performer, at home in Mozart as well as Wagner, Meyerbeer and Tchaikovsky.  Her musical interests had no boundaries. Her vocal range shifted over time from soprano roles to mezzo, although even here she could never be “pigeon-holed”, with the ability not only to cross over genres but also vocal styles and ranges.  A tireless crusader for development of others’ talents, she cooperated in the founding of a tuition-free performing arts after school program for disadvantaged children in her hometown of Augusta as well as serving many public humanitarian causes benefiting Meals on Wheels, AIDS research and the homeless in addition to supporting the performing arts.

She had performed for Queen Elizabeth II, for the unveiling of the Twin Towers memorial in New York, for the 200th Anniversary of the French Revolution as well as for two U.S. Presidential inaugurals - those of Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton.  A truly great American lady, her legacy is not limited to the many causes she suppoprted and the programs she helped to found, but to an image worth emulating for all of us and a life lived fully and beautifully.

Here is a brief video which seems appropriate today:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lkwlFpickY

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