MUSE: CULTURAL CENTER OF CAPE COD
JESSYE NORMAN: KEEP LEARNING, KEEP EXPLORING
“There has never been a time when I was not committed to, involved in, or caring of, the social and political issues of my world . ”
Jessye Norman was an American operatic soprano who won worldwide acclaim during her six-decade career as one of the few African-American opera singers to achieve international fame.
She was born in 1945 and grew up in Augusta, Georgia. One of five children born into a musical family, she began singing gospel songs in a local church at just four years old. In the mid-1960s, she won a scholarship to Howard University to study voice and later studied at the Peabody Conservatory and the University of Michigan.
Although Jessye was often billed as a soprano, her voice was much richer. With a strong middle and lower register, combining the texture of a spinto soprano with the tonality of a mezzo, her dramatic vocal range was once described as containing “sunlit rooms, narrow passageways, cavernous halls.”
Her dedication and commitment to singing were helped by pioneering black singers such as Dorothy Maynor, Leontyne Price, and Marian Anderson, the first black singer to appear at the Metropolitan Opera in 1955. “My parents said to us, practically on a daily basis, that we were as good as anyone else on this earth, and that we would simply have to work harder in order to show that.” That hard work, combined with great talent, brought incredible success, including five Grammy Awards, the prestigious Kennedy Center Honor, and the National Medal of Arts. “I want to keep learning, keep exploring,” she said. “Keep doing more.”
Jessye’s educational and outreach projects included the Jessye Norman School of the Arts in Georgia (free for disadvantaged children), and, in 2009, a celebration of the African-American cultural legacy titled Honor! Jessye, who died in 2019 at the age of 74, was openly frank and candid about racism. “It’s unrealistic to pretend that racial prejudice doesn’t exist,” she said in a 1983 interview in the New York Times.“ It does! It’s one thing to have a set of laws, and quite another to change the hearts and minds of men. That takes longer. I do not consider my blackness a problem. I think it looks rather nice.”
“I look forward to the day when we do not think about color of skin when we’re looking to have a person do a job, whatever that job is….”
HIGHLITE
Beginning March 6
Let’s Get Ready for Our 2021 Gardens!
With Priscilla Husband
Four Saturdays from 1–3pm
This 4-week course provides an opportunity for students to learn the basics of landscape design and installation through a new and simple approach, using intuitive tools and techniques for achieving successful, healthy, and colorful gardens and personalized landscape plans. Please bring a notebook and pen to take notes. If you have photos and/or a plot plan for your property please feel free to bring to class, but not necessary.
$125 – Member, $135 – Non-Member
Socially distanced, mask required for on-site participants.