Hi, I'm Marian Anderson,

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I was born on February 27 , 1897 in Philadelphia pennsylvania. I was named one of the best
contraltos of my time, I became the first African American to perform with the New York
metropolitan opera in 1955. I had exhibited/displayed my vocal talent as a child but my family
couldn’t afford formal training.
I was just 6 years old when I became a choir member at the Union Baptist Church, where I got
the nickname "Baby Contralto.'' My father, who was a coal and ice dealer, supported my musical
interests and bought me a piano when I was eight. With my family unable to afford lessons, I
taught myself.
When I was twelve my father died, leaving my mother to raise me and my other two siblings.
However, I did not give up on my musical ambitions. I remained deeply committed to my church
and its choir and rehearsed all the parts; soprano, alto, tenor and bass in front of my family until I
had perfected them.
My commitment to music and my range as a singer impressed the rest of my choir that the
church banded together and raised enough money, about $500, to pay for my training under
Giuseppe Boghetti, a respected voice teacher.
Over my two years of studying with Boghetti, I won a chance to sing at the Lewisohn Stadium in
New York after entering a contest organized by the New York Philharmonic Society.

A big piece of my singing career was devoted to giving performances in recital in important
music venues and in concerts as well as with well known orchestras throughout Europe and the
United States of America. Though I was offered various roles with many of the major European
opera companies, I declined all of them as I was not a trained actor.
With help from Reverend Wesley Parks, pastor of my church and directors of the People’s
Chorus, I was able to attend singing lessons from Mary Saunders Patterson. Eventually, I
succeeded in graduating from the South Philadelphia high School in 1921. upsettingly, my
application to the Philadelphia Music Academy, an all white school, was turned down for
reasons of ‘we don’t take color’.

I got my first break in 1925, after I earned the first prize for singing adequately in a competition
that was sponsored by the New York Philharmonic.(or nyp) This opened new avenues in my
career.
My achievements in the competition gave me the chance to perform in a grand concert arranged
with the orchestra on August 26, 1925. The performance was highly appreciated by the music
critics and the audience.
I stayed back in New York to make an intelligent move in my career. i got higher studies from
Frank La Forge and during this time Arthur Judson worked as my manager, who i had met
through NYP. In the next few years, I appeared for many concerts in the US, though racial
partiality posed many roadblocks. For this reason, my career was not able to get much
momentum.
Things changed in my singing career when I sang at Carnegie Hall in 1928. I made a smart move
by deciding to shift to Europe and studying with the then famous Sara Charles-Cahier. Then I
launched a highly successful European singing tour.
, my voice was famous on both sides of the Atlantic. i was invited by the U.S. President
Roosevelt and the First Lady Eleanor to give my performance at the White House.i was the first
African American singer to receive this exceptional honor.
I eventually retired from singing in 1965 after a long illustrious music career but I continued to
make public appearances even after that.
i hold the record of being the first African-American to have sung at the metropolitan Opera
House in New York, both in the years 1955 and in 1956.
I amazed the world by singing at the presidential inauguration of John F. Kennedy and Dwight
D. Eisenhower.
In 1957, i made a complete concert tour of the far east of the US State Department and India. My
European singing tour in the 1920s was the most popular of my time.
I worked for several years as a delegate to the United Nations Human Rights Committee for the
United States Department of State, and gave concerts throughout the world.
In 1955, i earned the perfection of becoming the first African American to perform at the New
York Metropolitan Opera as a member.

I married Orpheus H. Fisher on 17 July 1943 at Bethel in Connecticut. Orpheus was an architect
and I was his second wife. My husband had proposed to me when we were both teenagers.