Amanda Aldridge | |
---|---|
Born | London, England | 10 March 1866
Died | 9 March 1956 89) London, England | (aged
Other names |
|
Father | Ira Aldridge |
Relatives | Luranah Aldridge (sister) |
Amanda Christina Elizabeth Aldridge, also known as Amanda Ira Aldridge (10 March 1866 – 9 March 1956), was a British opera singer and teacher who composed love songs, suites, sambas, and light orchestral pieces under the pseudonym of Montague Ring.
Born into an artistic family, the Aldridge legacy included her father who was a successful African-American Shakespearian actor, Ira Frederick Aldridge. He was dubbed the ‘African Roscius' when he first starred as Othello at the Royalty Theatre in London. Her mother, Amanda Brandt, was a Swedish opera singer. Amanda’s sister, Luranah Aldridge was a star operatic contralto in Europe and the United States. [1] A vocal injury of laryngitis cut Amanda’s vocal career short, but she pursued a career as a pianist, teacher, and composer.
Amanda Aldridge was born on 10 March 1866 in Upper Norwood, London, the third child of African-American actor Ira Frederick Aldridge and his second wife, Amanda Brandt, who was Swedish. She had two sisters, Rachael and Luranah, and two brothers, Ira Daniel and Ira Frederick. [2] Aldridge studied voice under Jenny Lind and George Henschel at the Royal College of Music in London, and harmony and counterpoint with Frederick Bridge and Francis Edward Gladstone.
After completing her studies, Aldridge worked as a concert singer, piano accompanist, and voice teacher. A throat condition ended her concert appearances, and she turned to teaching and published about thirty songs between the years 1907 and 1925 in a romantic parlour style, as well as instrumental music in other styles. Among her pupils were the children of London's politically-active Black middle-classes, including Amy Barbour-James, daughter of John Barbour-James, Frank Alcindor son of Dr. John Alcindor, and composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's sister Alice Evans. [3] Her notable students included African-American performers Roland Hayes, Lawrence Benjamin Brown, Marian Anderson and Paul Robeson, and Bermudian-British actor Earl Cameron. [1] [4] [5] [6] In 1930, when Robeson performed as Othello in the West End, Aldridge was in attendance, and gave Robeson the gold earrings that her father Ira Aldridge had worn as Othello. [7] Aldridge also took the singer Ida Shepley under her wing and converted her from a singer to a stage actor. [4] In 1951, African-American weekly magazine Jet reported that she was still giving piano and voice lessons aged 86. [8]
Amanda cared for her sister, the opera singer Luranah Aldridge (1860 – 1932), when she became ill, declining an invitation in 1921 from W. E. B. Du Bois to attend the second Pan-African Congress, with a note explaining: "As you know, my sister is very helpless. … I cannot leave for more than a few minutes at a time." [7]
At the age of 88, Aldridge made her first television appearance in the British show Music For You, where Muriel Smith sang Montague Ring's "Little Southern Love Song". After a short illness, she died in London on 9 March 1956, a day before her 90th birthday. [9]
In the Autumn 2020 edition of The Historian, Stephen Bourne assessed the composer's life and career in an illustrated feature "At home with Amanda Ira Aldridge". [10] Bourne had previously written Aldridge's article for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography . [11] In 2022, Google honoured Aldridge's memory with a Doodle. [12]
Aldridge ended her singing career to compose and teach music after laryngitis damaged her throat. Her compositional career spanned from approximately 1906 to 1934. She mainly composed Romantic parlour music, a type of popular music performed primarily in parlours of the middle-class homes, frequently by amateur singers and pianists. [9] Her music was published under the pseudonym Montague Ring. Under this name, she gained recognition for her many voice and piano compositions, including love songs, suites, sambas and light orchestral pieces, in a popular style that was infused with multiple genres. [13]
Selected works include:
John Liptrot Hatton was an English musical composer, conductor, pianist, accompanist and singer.
Ira Frederick Aldridge was an American-born British actor, playwright, and theatre manager, known for his portrayal of Shakespearean characters. James Hewlett and Aldridge are regarded as the first Black American tragedians.
The Padlock is a two-act 'afterpiece' opera by Charles Dibdin. The text was by Isaac Bickerstaffe. It debuted in 1768 at the Drury Lane Theatre in London as a companion piece to The Earl of Warwick. It partnered other plays before a run of six performances in tandem with The Fatal Discovery by John Home. "The Padlock" was a success, largely due to Dibdin's portrayal of Mungo, a blackface caricature of a black servant from the West Indies. The company took the production to the United States the next year, where a portrayal by Lewis Hallam, Jr. as Mungo met with even greater accolades. The libretto was first published in London around 1768 and in Dublin in 1775. The play remained in regular circulation in the U.S. as late as 1843. It was revived by the Old Vic Company in London and on tour in the UK in 1979 in a new orchestration by Don Fraser and played in a double-bill with Garrick's Miss In Her Teens. The role of Mungo was, again, played by a white actor. Opera Theatre of Chicago have recently revived the piece (2007?) where, it would seem, the role of Mungo was changed to that of an Irish servant.
This is a selected list of W. S. Gilbert's works, including all that have their own Wikipedia articles. For a complete list of Gilbert's dramatic works, see List of W. S. Gilbert dramatic works.
Othello is the titular protagonist in Shakespeare's Othello. The character's origin is traced to the tale "Un Capitano Moro" in Gli Hecatommithi by Giovanni Battista Giraldi Cinthio. There, he is simply referred to as the Moor.
”The Shepherd’s Song” is a song written by the English composer Edward Elgar in 1892. The words are by Barry Pain.
”Like to the Damask Rose” is a poem either by Francis Quarles called "Hos ego versiculos", or by Simon Wastell called “The flesh profiteth nothing”. It was set to music by the English composer Edward Elgar in 1892.
"Queen Mary's Song" is a song written by the English composer Edward Elgar in 1889. The words are by Tennyson, sung by Queen Mary I of England as she plays a lute in scene 2, act 5 of his 1875 play Queen Mary: A Drama.
Seven Lieder is a set of songs by the English composer Edward Elgar published together in 1907, by Ascherberg, Hopwood & Crew Ltd.
Mary Hannah (May) Brahe was an Australian composer, best known for her songs and ballads. Her most famous song by far is "Bless This House", recorded by John McCormack, Beniamino Gigli, Lesley Garrett and Bryn Terfel. According to Move.com.au: "She was the only Australian woman composer to win local an international recognition before World War II," having "290 of her 500 songs published. Of these, 248 were written under her own name, the remainder under aliases.
Hubert Leslie Woodgate was an English choral conductor, composer, and writer of books on choral music.
Florence Aylward was an English composer known for ballads.
Amy EliseHorrocks, a life-long pacifist, was an English music educator, composer and pianist, born to English parents and Hannah Horrocks in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, where it is suggested that Francis Horrocks was constructing tramways. Amy had an elder sister, Marian, also born in Brazil, but who died there in 1862 aged 1 year. Contrary to one report, she did not have a brother. She had a close association with the Royal Academy of Music as both a student, teacher and Fellow and enjoyed a degree of professional success, including several performances of her work at the Proms.
Stephen Bourne is a British writer, film and social historian specialising in Black heritage and gay culture.
Lawrence Benjamin Brown was an American singer, composer and pianist born in Jacksonville, Florida. He is best known for his arrangements of Negro spirituals, many of which he performed as accompanist for Paul Robeson, performing on piano and singing harmony.
"Vienna, City of My Dreams" is a 1914 song composed by the Austrian Rudolf Sieczyński who also wrote the lyrics. The 1957 film Vienna, City of My Dreams takes its title from the song.
Irene Luranah Pauline Aldridge was an English opera singer in the United States and Europe who unofficially "broke the colour barrier" for Black opera singers of Richard Wagner in 1896, well before Grace Bumbry.
Florence Margaret Spencer Palmer was a British composer who wrote several hymns and a piano pedagogy textbook. She published some of her works under the name Peggy Spencer Palmer.
Alma Goatley Temple-Smith was an English musician and composer. From 1935 to 1936, she was president of the Society of Women Musicians.
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