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American soprano Jessye Norman was one of the most important figures of the 20th and early 21st century opera. In her performances of prominent operatic roles, as well as a celebrated recital and recording career, she was well regarded throughout the world.

Norman was born on September 15, 1945, in Augusta, Georgia. She started singing spirituals at the age of four at Mount Calvary Baptist Church; one Saturday, while doing her chores, she heard an opera for the first time, broadcast on the radio. She became an instant opera fan and started listening to recordings of Marian Anderson and Leontyne Price. Nat "King" Cole was also a major inspiration for her. At 16, Norman began studying at Howard University, where her voice teacher was Carolyn Grant. She sang in the university chorus and worked as a soloist at the Lincoln Temple United Church of Christ. In 1965, she won the National Society of Arts and Letters singing competition. She continued her studies at Peabody Conservatory of Music in Baltimore and at the University of Michigan, where her most important teachers were Elizabeth Mannion and Pierre Bernac.

In 1968, Norman won the Munich Competition, leading to her operatic debut as Elisabeth in Wagner's Tannhäuser in Berlin. A major European operatic career quickly developed: she appeared in Meyerbeer's L'Africaine at Maggio Musicale in Florence in 1971, Verdi's Aïda at La Scala in Milan in 1972, and in Berlioz's Les Troyens at London's Covent Garden the same year. These roles bespeak a major part of Norman's stage persona: a commanding and noble bearing, partly due to her uncommon height and size. However, this was more a function of her unique, rich, and powerful voice. She had an uncommonly wide range, encompassing all female voice registers from contralto to the high dramatic soprano.

As her operatic career developed, Norman also made important recital debuts, including London and New York in 1973. She made an extensive North American concert debut in 1976 and 1977 but did not appear in opera in the U.S. until 1982. This was with the Opera Company of Philadelphia, in a double bill as Dido in Purcell's Dido and Aeneas and Queen Jocasta in Stravinsky's Oedipus Rex. Her Metropolitan Opera debut was as Cassandra in 1983, the opening night of the Met's centennial season.

Her interpretation of Strauss' Four Last Songs was legendary. Its slowness was controversial, but the tonal qualities of her voice were ideal for these final works of the great Romantic German lieder tradition. She also sang Schoenberg's Gurrelieder and his opera Erwartung; she sang this on a memorable double bill at the Met with Bartók's Bluebeard's Castle, which was broadcast nationally. She appeared on live broadcasts of season-opening concerts of the New York Philharmonic.

Norman was acclaimed in her singing of Mussorgsky songs in the original Russian, the German Romantic lieder repertoire, and French music from Berlioz to contemporary composers. Another major part of her musical life was in the performance of American music. These included jazz standards, the sacred music of Duke Ellington, African American spirituals, and woman.life.song., a song cycle composed by Judith Weir, commissioned for Norman by Carnegie Hall.

Throughout her life, Norman was asked to perform in many important ceremonies in the U.S. and abroad. These include singing the French national anthem for the 200th anniversary of the French revolution, the funeral of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, the opening ceremony of the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, and singing America, the Beautiful at the dedication of the memorial columns of light at the site of the World Trade Center in New York.

Norman had an extensive and successful recording career, mainly recording on the Philips label. She released albums of opera, recital, jazz, and Christmas music. She won five Grammy awards, including the "Grammy for Lifetime Achievement" in 2006.

Jessye Norman died in New York on September 30, 2019, following complications from a spinal cord injury suffered in 2015. ~ Joseph Stevenson & Keith Finke

Accompanist Dalton Baldwin made over 100 recordings of song recitals and won numerous prizes for his work with Elly Ameling and Gérard Souzay. He was best known for his playing of the French repertoire and recorded the complete songs of Debussy, Fauré, Poulenc, Ravel, and Roussel with various artists. His recordings of Schubert and Schumann with Ameling and Souzay are highly regarded also. His playing was characterized by subtle changes of tonal color and sensitivity to the needs of the performer. He had wonderful control of dynamics and never allowed the piano to overshadow the singer.

Baldwin was born in Summit, New Jersey, on December 19, 1931. He began his musical training at the Juilliard School of Music and then went to the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, where he earned his B.Mus. He continued his studies in Paris with Nadia Boulanger and Madeleine Lipatti, and in 1954, he began his long and successful partnership with Gérard Souzay. While maintaining his partnership with Souzay, Baldwin began to perform and record regularly with Elly Ameling in 1970. In the mid-1970s, he began an association with Jessye Norman both on stage and in the recording studio. He accompanied Arleen Augér's first New York recital in 1984 and recorded an award-winning disc of Love Songs with her. Concentrating primarily on the song repertoire, Baldwin was coached by composers Poulenc, Sibelius, Martin, and Barber. He played in many world premieres, notably of Rorem's War Scenes in 1969, with Souzay. Baldwin accompanied many other singers, including Mady Mesplé, Edda Moser, Jennie Tourel, Marilyn Horne, Frederica von Stade, Nicolai Gedda, José van Dam, William Parker, and Steven Kimbrough. Touring with these artists took Baldwin to all of the major music capitals of the world. Baldwin gave lectures on the art of the accompanist and served as artistic director for art song festivals at Westminster Choir College (Princeton, NJ), University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Cleveland Institute of Music, and University of Colorado (Boulder). Before Souzay's death, he and Baldwin gave master classes in Geneva every summer for young professional singers and accompanists from around the world. Baldwin also taught at the Manhattan School of Music and Westminster Choir College in Princeton.

In 1987, he was awarded the Croix de Commandant de l'Ordre des Arts et Lettres by the French government. Although best known in partnership with singers, Baldwin also worked with violinist Henryk Szeryng and cellist Pierre Fournier.

Whenever possible, Baldwin returned to the Himalayas and the wildlife preserves of Africa to replenish his need for natural beauty. After one such visit to temples in Myanmar, his plane was forced to land in China in order to rush him to the hospital, where he died a week before his 88th birthday. ~ Richard LeSueur

Among the best-known London choral groups for many years, the Ambrosian Singers was particularly notable for its work in opera and was sometimes known as the Ambrosian Opera Chorus or Ambrosian Light Opera Chorus. The group emerged from the early music movement in Britain after World War II, but it expanded greatly in both size and repertory. The Ambrosian Singers had a large recording catalog that included several well-loved holiday releases. The group disbanded in 2009, but the choir's music has continued to appear in reissues.

The Ambrosian Singers were founded in 1951 by musicologist and violist Denis Stevens, who had been involved since 1949 in developing Renaissance and early Baroque music programs for the BBC, and tenor John McCarthy. Their intent was to make available a small professional choir that would give authentic performances of medieval and Renaissance choral polyphony and, eventually, to make recordings of music in this tradition. This was something to which the large British university and cathedral choirs of the time were unsuited. The group was soon hired to provide music for a BBC radio series, The History of Western Music. This allowed the singers to stretch their wings in repertory other than early music and broaden the group's aims. Stevens departed in 1955 for a career in academia, but a group of members organized themselves under McCarthy's leadership, performing under various names. While McCarthy served as choral director for the London Symphony Orchestra in the early '60s, they were called the London Symphony Orchestra Chorus, but this group was essentially the Ambrosian Singers.

The Ambrosian Singers' recording career dates back to the '50s; they made an early appearance backing countertenor Alfred Deller on his 1957 recording of Monteverdi's Il Ballo delle Ingrate and Lamento d'Arianna on the Vanguard Classics label. Both opera and film music were heavily represented in the group's catalog; in the latter field, they appeared on both original film soundtracks, such as that by composer Vangelis for Chariots of Fire (1981), and new recordings of older soundtrack music. The Ambrosian Singers were also featured as the primary artists on choral releases of their own, including an album of Beethoven's late choral music with Michael Tilson Thomas conducting the London Symphony Orchestra; that album appeared in 1975 on the CBS label and was reissued in 1988.

The Ambrosian Singers were a frequent presence in major British opera performances and recordings for many years. They released several Christmas recordings of their own and also backed a diverse set of pop stars ranging from Julie Andrews to Talk Talk to Grace Jones. A unique feature of the Ambrosian Singers was that the group generally did not have a fixed membership; instead, there were some 700 singers who could be called upon for projects as needed. Many of the most famous British opera and art song performers, including soprano Heather Harper, mezzo-soprano Janet Baker, and tenor Robert Tear, passed through the group at one time or another. McCarthy remained the group's director, and the Ambrosian Singers slowed their activities as his health deteriorated; they disbanded completely after his death in 2009. However, Ambrosian Singers material continued to appear on recordings into the 2020s; by 2024, the group had appeared on more than 500 releases, including a 2024 album devoted to Neville Marriner, The Distinguished Conductor. ~ James Manheim