Jessye Norman

One of the most distinguished musical artist of our time, the singer Jessye Norman was born in Augusta, Georgia. As a ten-year-old child, she was spellbound by a recording of the great contralto Marian Anderson. Inspired by Anderson's recordings and autobiography, she resolved to become a classical singer herself. At age 16, she won a full scholarship to study voice at Howard University. After graduate music studies at Peabody Conservatory, she went to Europe, where she was soon discovered by the Continent's leading conductors and impresarios. She made her operatic debut in Tannhauser at Berlin's Deutsche Oper. A dramatic soprano with a special affinity for the German repertoire, she has won acclaim in the operas of Wagner and Richard Strauss. Equally at home in French and Italian, she has enchanted audiences as Bizet's Carmen and as Mozart's Countess Almaviva. In addition to her concert roles. Her recitals and recordings have included American spirituals, French chansons and German lieder. From Haydn to Mahler to Schoenberg and Berg, from Satie and Poulenc to Gershwin and Bernstein, the range of Jessye Norman’s musical reach is breathtaking. She has conquered stages from Lincoln Center to Covent Garden, Carnegie Hall to the Musikverein, from La Scala to the Paris Opera and the Vienna State Opera, from Tokyo to San Francisco, Houston and Boston, from Granada to Graz and from Salzburg to Hong Kong. She made Metropolitan Opera history by singing both Cassandra and Dido in a historic production of Les Troyens by Hector Berlioz during the Met’s centennial season. In 1989, he was chosen to embody the spirit of liberty, equality and fraternity, singing "La Marseillaise" during the bicentennial celebration of the French Revolution at the Place de la Concorde in Paris. This podcast was recorded at historic Hoover Dam, during the evening ceremonies of the Academy of Achievement's 1992 Summit in Las Vegas, Nevada. It begins with a short recording of Jessye Norman in performance. In her address to the Academy' student delegates, she recites two short poems and exhorts the students to exceed expectations and participate fully in the life of the world around them.