Camilla Williams facts for kids
Camilla Ella Williams (born October 18, 1919 – died January 29, 2012) was an amazing American opera singer. She was a soprano, which means she sang the highest parts. Camilla Williams made history as the first African American singer to get a regular contract with a big American opera company, the New York City Opera. She also won important awards like the Marian Anderson Fellowship.
In 1954, she became the first African American to sing a main role with the famous Vienna State Opera in Austria. She performed with many orchestras in Europe and toured all over the United States, Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. Later, in 1977, she became the first African American to be a Professor of Voice at Indiana University, where she taught until 1997.
Early Life and Learning Music
Camilla Ella Williams was born on October 18, 1919, in Danville, Virginia. Her parents were Fannie Carey Williams, who worked as a laundress, and Cornelius Booker Williams, a chauffeur. She was the youngest of four children. Camilla grew up in a neighborhood where music was very important to her family. Her grandfather, Alexander Carey, was even a choir leader. Her parents taught her to love music, church, and learning. By age eight, Camilla enjoyed playing the piano and singing at school and church.
Camilla went to Virginia State College, which is now Virginia State University. She earned a bachelor's degree in music education. After college, she left her job as a third-grade teacher to study music in Philadelphia. She learned from a very respected voice teacher named Marion Szekely Freschl. To help Camilla pay for her studies, her former English teacher, Tossie P. Whiting, started a special fund for her. Camilla won a Marian Anderson Award in both 1943 and 1944. She continued to win many honors in singing contests.
A Star on Stage
In 1944, Camilla Williams began performing on the radio across the country. In 1946, she became the first African American to get a regular contract with a major American opera company. She made her first appearance with the New York City Opera in the main role of Madama Butterfly by Puccini. A critic from The New York Times said her performance was "an instant and pronounced success." While at the New York City Opera, she sang many famous roles. These included Nedda in Pagliacci, Mimi in La bohème, Marguerite in Faust, Micaela in Carmen, and the main role in Aida.
Camilla Williams sang with different opera companies across the United States and Europe. In 1951, she sang Bess in the first full recording of Porgy and Bess by Gershwin. She recorded this with bass-baritone Lawrence Winters. Even though she liked recording, she felt the opera should be changed to show modern African American life better. Because of this, she chose not to perform it on stage.
In 1954, she made history again by becoming the first African American to sing a main role with the Vienna State Opera. She performed her famous role in Madama Butterfly there. In August 1963, Camilla Williams sang "The Star-Spangled Banner" at the White House. Later, at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, she sang the anthem again before 250,000 people at the Lincoln Memorial. This was just before Martin Luther King Jr. gave his famous "I Have a Dream" speech.
As a concert artist, Camilla Williams toured all over the United States, Latin America, and fourteen African countries. She also visited many countries in Asia, including China, Japan, and Australia. She was a soloist with famous orchestras like the Royal Philharmonic, BBC Symphony, Berlin Philharmonic, and New York Philharmonic. In 1950, she recorded Mahler's Symphony No. 8 with Leopold Stokowski and the New York Philharmonic.
During the 1970s, Williams taught singing at several places. These included Brooklyn College, Bronx College, and Queens College.
In 1977, Camilla Williams became the first African American Professor of Voice at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. In 1984, she was also the first African American teacher at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, China. In 1997, she became a Professor Emerita at Indiana University, but she kept teaching privately.
Family Life
In 1950, Camilla Williams married Charles T. Beavers. He was a civil rights lawyer who worked closely with Malcolm X. Charles Beavers passed away in 1969.
From 2000 to 2011, she lived with her accompanist, Boris Bazala, who was from Bulgaria.
Awards and Legacy
Camilla Williams received many honors for her amazing career:
- In 1995, she was the first person to get the "Lift Every Voice" Legacy Award from the National Opera Association. This award celebrates the contributions of African Americans to opera.
- In 1996, Harvard University honored her as an Outstanding African American Singer/Pioneer.
- In 2000, her pioneering career was shown in a PBS documentary called Aida's Brothers and Sisters: Black Voices in Opera.
- In 2006, she was also featured in the PBS documentary The Mystery of Love.
- In 2007, the Library of Virginia honored her as one of eight women for its Virginia Women in History project.
- On February 11, 2009, the New York City Opera and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture held a special "Tribute to Camilla Williams" in New York.
- On September 4, 2009, Indiana University gave her the President's Medal for Excellence.
- In 2011, her life story, The Life of Camilla Williams, African American Classical Singer and Opera Diva, was published as a book.
See also
In Spanish: Camilla Williams para niños
