Arts & Entertainment
Marian Anderson Gave a Legendary Performance at BAM
The singer even lived in the neighborhood for a short time.
On March 28, 1938, a standing-room-only crowd witnessed the legendary Marian Anderson perform a recital at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in Fort Greene.
To say that this was a groundbreaking event would be an understatement.
After all, it was only just a year before that the Daughters of the American Revolution refused to allow Anderson to sing at the Constitution Hall in D.C. because of a “white performers only” policy. The racist gatekeepers at Constitution Hall did not care that Anderson had just finished highly successful tour across Europe. They ignored that the likes of renowned Finnish composer Jean Sibelius had said to the singer, “a voice like yours is heard once in a hundred years.”
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Yet, the Daughters of the American Revolution’s slight set off a chain of events that pushed Anderson further into the spotlight.
Her performance at BAM was, by all accounts, one for the ages. She gave rousing performances of Schubert's “Ave Maria” and “Wohin,” Purchell's “When I am Laid in the Earth” and spirituals like “Steal Away” and “Go Down Moses," according to Sharon Lehner, an archivist at BAM.
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“Anderson lived in Fort Green and often attended lectures and performances at BAM,” Lehner added.
A year after her performance in Brooklyn, Anderson was invited to sing before at the Lincolm Memorial in front of around 75,000 people. The First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, had extended the invitation herself in direct response to the Daughter of the American Revolution. The performance went down in history as a symbol of the budding American civil rights movement.
Eventually, Anderson, a Philadelphia native, sought work overseas and went on to perform throughout the world. Her long career reached its pinnacle on Jan. 7, 1955, when she became the first black person to sing at New York’s Metropolitan Opera.
A graceful woman who once remarked that she could sing "any note in any of the registers”, Anderson overcame the many racial hurdles of her day to become one of the greatest singer of the 20th century.
