Who is marian anderson

In , she performed the national anthem at President John F. Kennedy 's inauguration. Two years later, Kennedy honored the singer with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. After retiring from performing in , Anderson set up her life on her farm in Connecticut. In , the music world honored her with a Grammy Award for Lifetime Achievement. Her final years were spent in Portland, Oregon, where she'd moved in with her nephew. She died there of natural causes on April 8, We strive for accuracy and fairness.

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National Portrait Gallery Marian Anderson. Smithsonian Channel Marian Anderson in Concert. Smithsonian Music Tell us about Marian Anderson. She made several cross country tours and soon was booking engagements two years in advance.

In one year she covered 26, miles in the longest tour in concert history, giving 70 concerts in five months. By , it was estimated that she had performed before nearly 4 million listeners. Marian Anderson's contralto voice was notable for its power and exceptionally dark texture, particularly in the lowest register.

The high voice changed quality—not unusual in a contralto of prodigious range—but idiosyncracies never obliterated the fine musicality and sincere emotion that marked her performances. With Roland Hayes and Paul Robeson, Marian Anderson pioneered in winning recognition at home and abroad for black artists.

In , an incident involving the Daughters of the American Revolution did much to focus public attention on racism. Her concert there, on Easter morning, drew a live audience of 75,, and millions more heard it over the radio. Anderson married Orpheus H. Fisher, a New York architect, in Music critic Alan Blyth said: "Her voice was a rich, vibrant contralto of intrinsic beauty. The incident placed Anderson into the spotlight of the international community on a level unusual for a classical musician.

Roosevelt, Anderson performed a critically acclaimed open-air concert on Easter Sunday, April 9, , on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in the capital. She sang before an integrated crowd of more than 75, people and a radio audience in the millions. Anderson continued to break barriers for black artists in the United States, becoming the first black person, American or otherwise, to perform at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City on January 7,