MURFREESBORO — MTSU School of Music vocal
professor Dina Cancryn has a new song in her heart for Black History Month:
sharing the stories of some of the first classical singers of color.
Cancryn
created “Portraits: The First African-American
Divas of Song and Opera,” a theatrical production that depicts Elizabeth
Taylor-Greenfield, Sissieretta Jones and Marian Anderson sharing their history
and their fabulous voices, a decade ago.
Now a
special performance of “Portraits,” captured on video, is set for a free public
screening Monday, Feb. 1, at 8 p.m. in Hinton Hall inside MTSU’s Wright Music
Building.
“Most people
don’t know these ladies,” Cancryn explains, a note of surprise in her voice. “They're
just not spoken of. And that's part of the reason I dedicated this to my
daughter, because if it wasn't for her I wouldn't have written this.”
Cancryn,
a soprano with a lengthy resume of national and international performances, was
at home on maternity leave and flipping through videos on TV while her then-infant
daughter napped. Frustrated at the “one-dimensional” aspect of what she saw,
and channeling her longtime interest in African-American musicians’
contributions to classical music, she began to write.
“I wrote
‘Portraits’ thinking at the time that I'd love to have something for my newborn
daughter to see that, as a people, we are not one-dimensional, and that there
are contributions made on a variety of scale and genre,” she says. “These women
are not the first three African-American opera singers, but they are three of
the first. I found their stories to be quite compelling.”
The
project evolved into a theatrical production that toured for about seven years
across the Southeast. When Cancryn received a small grant from MTSU’s Faculty Research
and Creative Activity Committee to film the production, another phase of
“Portraits” got underway.
“Considering
we had a very small budget, for which I’m very grateful indeed, I'm very proud
of what we've done,” Cancryn says. “James Manning, executive director of
Oaklands Mansion, donated use of the mansion and free rein of all the different
rooms so that we could film on location there. … I'm very appreciative of that,
because it helped to give this a more intimate feel.”
Their
weeklong filming schedule took Cancryn, the performers, pianist/vocal coach
Joseph Walker and an MTSU crew that included director Ty Whitaker, Jon Jackson,
Mitch Pryor, Jordan Kirkman and Aaron Trimbal back in time as they worked at
Oaklands and inside Hinton Hall to recreate the performances of these divas and
capture them on film.
MTSU
alumna Courtney Clark portrays the gifted Greenfield, whose 1851 debut as the
first African-American classical singer led to her nickname “The Black Swan,” coined
for the lovely tone of her voice as well as her gracious presence. Cancryn
performs as Jones, renowned for her vocal clarity and enunciation as well as
her status as the highest-paid African-American performer at her turn-of-the-century
career zenith.
Nashville-based
vocalist Sonya Sardon portrays contralto Anderson, one of the 20th century’s
most celebrated singers who also was lauded for her trailblazing civil rights
efforts, including her Easter 1939 Washington Memorial concert and her return for
the 1963 March on Washington, where she sang “He’s Got the Whole Word in His
Hands.”
The women
come together on the screen now as they never could in life, performing an arrangement
of the spiritual "Done Made My Vow to the Lord" specially created for
Cancryn’s “Portraits” by her School of Music colleague, Grammy-winning musician
Dr. Cedric Dent.
“My goal
now is to have this disseminated to middle schools and high schools all over
the country so that young people can see what these African-American women have
contributed to history,” Cancryn says. “There would be no Leontyne Price or
Jessye Norman or Denyce Graves without Elizabeth Greenfield.
“I'm not
taking anything away from the Beyonces and the Nicki Minajes of this world at
all, but I feel like there's a need for balance, to let young people of any
culture or color see that we're not monolithic as a people. … Our contributions
are like an artist's palette.”
You can
watch a preview of the production at http://youtu.be/bslwvOP0LRw.
To arrange to screen “Portraits: The
First African-American Divas of Song and Opera” at your school or
organization, contact Cancryn at dina.cancryn@mtsu.edu.
For
details on more MTSU School of Music events, call 615-898-2493 or visit http://www.mtsumusic.com and
click on the "Concert Calendar" link.
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