Marian Anderson: a Singer's Journey - Hardcover

Born in 1897, Marian Anderson fell in love with music at an early age. Almost a century later, The New York Times would declare that "Miss Anderson's place as the high priestess of American musicians, whatever their color, is not to be denied". Yet success did not come easy for this talented singer. Although in 1938 she would become the first African-American singer to perform at the White House, just one year later, the Daughters of the American Revolution denied Anderson use of their concert hall (instead, she performed for a crowd of 75,000 at the Lincoln Memorial). But Anderson persevered, and her subsequent honors include a performance as the first African-American soloist at the Metropolitan Opera, the Presidential Medal of Honor, and the Eleanor Roosevelt Human Rights Award.In the culmination of his lifelong fascination with Marian Anderson, Allan Keiler has superbly documented the life of this guarded public figure -- who is still enormously popular six years after her death (a collection of Anderson's works, Spirituals, recently reached number nine on the Tower Records classical music chart). Now correcting errors that appeared in Anderson's own highly selective memoir, My Lord, What a Morning, Keiler enhances both the history of American music and of the civil rights movement by uncovering the life of one of the century's greatest artists.

Allan Keiler received a Ph.D. in linguistics from Harvard University and did his graduate work in music at the University of Chicago. He taught at universities in the United States and Europe, including SUNY Stonybrook, Yale, Princeton, and Grenoble. Currently professor of music at Brandeis University, he is known particularly for his scholarship in music theory. He lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.