Marian Anderson and the Desegregation of the American Concert Stage

Wednesday, September 28 | 4 PM

Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University

Knafel Center, 10 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA

Hailed as one of the greatest singers of the 20th century, Marian Anderson used her talent and celebrity to advance civil rights. Her 1939 concert at the Lincoln Memorial defied a ban excluding African American performers from Constitution Hall in Washington, DC, and her 1955 debut at the Metropolitan Opera ended the Met’s exclusion of African American singers in starring roles. This lecture—which includes audio and video of Anderson in performance—repositions those landmarks as part of the little-discussed history of institutional segregation in the classical music business.

Lecture by Carol J. Oja, 2016–2017 Frieda L. Miller Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute and the William Powell Mason Professor of Music at Harvard University.

Please register online and join us by visiting www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/event/2016-carol-j-oja-fellow-presentation.

The event is free and open to the public. We encourage you to share this invitation with people you know who may be interested in attending this event.

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