Soprano Adrienne Danrich to give new voice to opera legends
Soprano Adrienne Danrich brings her show “This Little Light of Mine: The Stories of Marian Anderson and Leontyne Price” to Tennessee Tech University’s campus Jan. 21-22.
Her performance will be at TTU’s Wattenbarger Auditorium 7:30 p.m., Friday, Jan. 22. She will also hold a master class at 11 a.m., Thursday, Jan. 21. The appearances are Center Stage events and will be free and open to the public.
The program was written by Danrich under commission from the Cincinnati Opera and is a one-woman musical tribute to the groundbreaking careers of Anderson and Price.
“We will be fortunate to have her on campus again,” said TTU music professor Frederick Kennedy. “She sang with the Bryan Symphony in the performance of the Brahms Requiem, and she has also given a recital here before. Both times she gave wonderful performances. Adrienne is a young singer on the rise.”
Anderson was an African-American contralto who overcame racial prejudice with a critically acclaimed concert at the Lincoln Memorial on Easter Sunday 1939. The Daughters of the American Revolution had denied her permission to perform in Constitution Hall. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt helped her secure the open-air concert venue instead. She received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1991.
Price, a soprano, was the first African-American singer to achieve an international operatic reputation. She began her career singing as a child in the churches of her Mississippi childhood. She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1964, the National Medal of Arts in 1985 and the lifetime achievement award from the National Academy of Recorded Arts and Sciences in 1989. She has more than 20 Grammy Awards.
Danrich, based in New York, models her show after Ken Burns’ famous documentaries. She both narrates the story and sings various arias to bring to life the careers of Anderson and Price. Danrich’s voice has been described by critics as “fresh liquid-silver.”
For more information, contact Frederick Kennedy at (931) 372-3624.
