Patrick Bade
The Struggle for Recognition: African American Classical Singers: Roland Hayes, Marian Anderson, Dorothy Maynor and Leontyne Price

Patrick Bade | The Struggle for Recognition: African American Classical Singers Roland Hayes, Marian Anderson, Dorothy Maynor | 02.11.24

♪ Deep river ♪ ♪ My home is over Jordan ♪ ♪ Deep river ♪ ♪ Lord ♪ ♪ I want to cross ♪ ♪ Over into campground ♪ ♪ Deep river ♪ ♪ My home is over ♪ ♪ Jordan ♪ ♪ Deep ♪ ♪ River ♪ ♪ Lord ♪ ♪ I want to cross ♪ ♪ Over into campground ♪

• That is the wondrous voice of Marian Anderson right at the beginning of her career, in its full glory. And on the screen at the moment, we’ve got Anderson on the left and Toscanini on the right. And he first heard Marian Anderson Salzburg Festival in 1935. And he was so overcome by the beauty of her voice that he exclaimed that one only hears a voice like that once in a century. This became very famous, and it really followed her through her career. She was again and again referred to as the voice of the century. I’m going to talk about three singers today. Afro-American singers, they’re all pioneers. On the left, we have Dorothy Maynor. In the middle, Roland Hayes. On the right, Marian Anderson. Pioneers in that they were the first Afro-American singers to have serious and successful careers in the concert hall. They were immensely courageous characters.

All three of them, it’s a story of a great struggle, of rejection, humiliation, but also of courage and determination. And you have to remember that all three of them were only a generation or so away from slavery. Dorothy Maynor’s maternal grandfather was a slave, and would not have been far back for the other two as well. In fact, there was one predecessor, this woman called Sissieretta Jones. And she had a career in the late 19th, first years of the 20th Century. Sadly, we don’t have any records of her. But she apparently had an absolutely phenomenal voice. And she was billed as The Black Patti. Something that she, in fact, did not like very much to be called. But her voice was compared with Adelina Patti, who was regarded as the queen of song. And she sang, she had an extensive concert career in America and in Europe. She sang for royalty in Europe. She sang at the White House for four successive presidents.

And they all seemed to have given her medals. And she was very proud of them. And she used to wear them in her concerts. But I’m beginning the oldest of the three singers. I’m talking about is Roland Hayes, and he was born in 1887. His parents were poor farmers. So again, it was a big struggle for him to have a career as a classical musician, something very unexpected. With all three of these singers, one thing they have in common was a very strong Christian background and an upbringing with a lot of church attendance, and a lot of music and singing in the churches. And all three recorded very moving accounts of spirituals. So I’m going to start off with Roland Hayes singing “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child”.

♪ Sometimes I feel like a motherless child ♪ ♪ Sometimes I feel like ♪ ♪ A motherless child ♪ ♪ Sometimes I feel like ♪ ♪ A motherless child ♪ ♪ A long way from home ♪ ♪ A long way from home ♪ ♪ Sometimes I feel like ♪ ♪ A mourning dove ♪ ♪ Sometimes I feel like ♪ ♪ A mourning dove ♪ ♪ Sometimes I feel like ♪ ♪ A mourning dove ♪ ♪ A long way from home ♪ ♪ A long ways ♪ ♪ From home ♪ ♪ And sometimes I feel like ♪ ♪ A feather in the air ♪ ♪ Sometimes I feel like a feather in the air ♪ ♪ Sometimes I feel like a feather in the air ♪ ♪ Way up in the heavenly land ♪ ♪ Way up in the heavenly land ♪

So another important factor for him was the invention of the gramophone record. So he was born 1887. He would’ve been 15 when the first records of Caruso were issued. Those are the really first important operatic records ever made. And he heard records of Caruso. And this really gave him the ambition to go beyond the world of religious songs and the church. So he started giving concerts round about 1915. But he realised he needed more training. And he managed to gather the money to go to Europe in 1920. And he studied with the man you see on the left-hand side. This is a portrait by John Singer Sargent of Sir George Henschel. Who was himself a very fine interpreter of German lieder. He was born in 1850. And he made, he lived long enough and kept his voice long enough to make electrical records at the end of the 1920s. So he’s actually one of the very earliest singers that we have on record. You can see he was also a very handsome man, considered a very charming man, much loved. And he was an important conductor. And so Roland Hayes came to London to study with Henschel. My next recording of Roland Hayes is of an English song, “Have You Seen But a White Lily Grow”. And this is sung, I think, with the most exquisite refinement and tenderness. And it shows what a very sensitive artist Roland Hayes was.

♪ Have you seen but a whyte Lilie grow ♪ ♪ Before rude hands had touch’d it ♪ ♪ Have you mark’d but the fall of the snow ♪ ♪ Before the Earth hath smucht it ♪ ♪ Have you felt the wool of Beaver ♪ ♪ Or Swansdown ever ♪ ♪ Or have smelt of the Bud of the Bryer ♪ ♪ Or the Nard in the fire ♪ ♪ Or have tasted the Bag of the Bee ♪ ♪ O so whyte, O so soft ♪ ♪ O so sweet, so sweet ♪ ♪ So sweet is she ♪ ♪ O so whyte, O so soft ♪ ♪ O so sweet ♪ ♪ So sweet ♪ ♪ So sweet ♪ ♪ Is she ♪

So prepared by Henschel, he made his debut at the Wigmore Hall in London in 1921. And created such a sensation that King George V and Queen Mary, the very next day, ordered a command performance. He was summoned to perform privately for them at Buckingham Palace. Of course, the news got back to America. So when he came back to America in 1923, there was a lot of curiosity about him. And he made a highly successful debut. This is the first time I think that a Black singer sang in a concert with a major orchestra. It was the Boston Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Pierre Monteux. See Pierre Monteux on the right-hand side. He was certainly one of my heroes. One of these days I would like to do a whole lecture devoted to Pierre Monteux. It’s a very interesting career. He conducted the premiere of Stravinsky’s “Right of Spring.” He had an important career, both in Paris and in the United States.

As a Jew, he fled to, he was a refugee in the United States during the Second World War. Lived to, and conducted into, a very, very advanced age. In his late 80s, he was still conducting at the Metropolitan Opera. And while researching this lecture and other lectures coming up, it struck me how interesting it is that so many of the people who sponsored and helped Afro-American singers to have careers were themselves Europeans, and very often Jewish. I’m going to talk later about Rudolf Bing, who played a very important role in Marian Anderson’s career. Koussevitzky, who played an important role in Dorothy Maynor’s. And I’ve just been reading, rereading rather, ‘cause I’ve read it many years ago, the autobiography of Rudolf Bing. I’m going to be talking about him shortly. And he tells a very charming story about Pierre Monteux. That they were driving in the countryside in the deep South, and they were hungry. And they stopped at a local restaurant, and asked for a meal. And the woman in charge of the restaurant said, “I’m terribly sorry, but I’m not allowed to serve food "except to coloured people.” And Pierre Monteux smiled at her, and he said, “My dear, I am coloured, I’m pink.”

So for both Hayes and for Marian Anderson, it was important for them to actually establish their careers in Europe. And easier for them to do so. There was plenty of racism in Europe, of course, and about to find the most deadly form in the history of humanity with Nazism. But for Black artists, Europe was a much more welcoming place. And that was the same with jazz performers, Josephine Baker, and so on. They were more readily accepted by European audiences than they were by American audiences. But even so, all was not smooth. Marian Anderson was initially refused permission to sing in a concert hall in Salzburg because of the colour of her skin. And Roland Hayes, he made his Berlin debut in 1925 in the concert house that you see on the left-hand side. Must have been a very daunting experience.

Can you imagine for a young Afro-American to stand on the stage of this very August concert hall in Berlin. And when he appeared, there were boos and there were hisses from racist members of the audience. And with great courage, he continued and he went on and he sang. And appropriately enough, well, I don’t know, maybe not appropriately enough, he sang the song, Schubert’s beautiful song, “Du bist die Ruh”. “You Are The Calm.” You are the peace. And his singing of this song was so magical, it was so beautiful that it did have the desired effect. It pacified the audience. And from that moment on, they were fascinated by him. And at the end of the concert, he got a great ovation. So here he is many years later, of course, singing that song with which he pacified a hostile Berlin audience in 1925.

♪ Du bist die Ruh ♪ ♪ Der Friede mild ♪ ♪ Die Sehnsucht du ♪ ♪ Und was sie stillt ♪ ♪ Ich weihe dir ♪ ♪ Voll Lust und Schmerz ♪ ♪ Zur Wohnung hier ♪ ♪ Mein Aug’ und Herz ♪ ♪ Mein Aug’ und Herz ♪ ♪ Kehr’ ein bei mir ♪ ♪ Und schliesse du ♪ ♪ Still hinter dir ♪ ♪ Die Pforten zu ♪ ♪ Treib andern Schmerz ♪ ♪ Aus dieser Brust ♪ ♪ Voll sei dies Herz ♪ ♪ Von deiner Lust ♪ ♪ Von deiner Lust ♪ ♪ Dies Augenzelt ♪ ♪ Von deinem Glanz ♪ ♪ Allein erhellt ♪ ♪ O full’ es ganz ♪ ♪ O full’ es ganz ♪ ♪ Dies Augenzelt ♪ ♪ Von deinem Glanz ♪ ♪ Allein erhellt ♪ ♪ O full’ es ganz ♪ ♪ O full’ es ganz ♪

That was recorded very late in his career, when he was well into his 60s. But you can still hear his remarkable control in those slow ascents, soft ascents. Very, very difficult. So he continued a triumphal tour of Europe. And he went to Prague where he met the lady you see on the right-hand side. She was a married aristocrat from a very distinguished family. Her name was Countess Kolowrat-Krakowsky. And she was married to a member of the famous Colloredo family, the archbishop. Who in the 18th Century, who was the hated boss of Mozart. And these two had a passionate, and of course at the time, very scandalous affair. And they had an illegitimate child, a daughter. So she left her husband. In fact, Roland Hayes very much wanted to marry her and wanted to adopt the child.

But she wasn’t brave enough to do that. But there is an interesting postlude to this. The daughter later married a Russian refugee. And she had twin boys who became famous, and actually very notorious in France. And these are the Bogdanoff twins. They were TV personalities in France, very, very famous. Igor and Grichka Bogdanoff. They claim to have brilliant scientific minds. And they published learned thesis on physics. But these were very disputed. And they were accused of plagiarism. There was quite a big sort of scandal in the academic world about their writings. And they were very controversial personalities for a number of reasons. Also because of the plastic surgery, that they seem to have undertaken as they got older. Although they denied it. But I think when you compare the faces when they were young, handsome, and beautiful, and later less beautiful, it’s very clear they’d done something to their faces.

And they also became very notorious during the COVID epidemic, because they were anti-vaxxers. They were campaigning against vaccination. And then ironically, the two of them contracted COVID at the beginning of 2022. And they both died of it within days of one another. So the French media were all full of this at the beginning of 2022. And that’s when I read with some interest that they were, these two boys, these two men, were actually the grandchildren of Roland Hayes. Well, I’ve just played a sort of sad and wistful things sung by Roland Hayes. And I want to play something that shows you that he could do other things. So my last example of his singing is in a very jaunty Caribbean folk song, to which he brings great charm and wit.

♪ Music plays ♪

Back to Marian Anderson. You see her as a baby on the left, and as a young woman. And she was born into a poor working-class family. And they were very devout Christians. And once again, her musical, her introduction to music was through the local church. And it soon became evident that she had this absolutely extraordinary voice. And she applied to the Philadelphia Musical Academy, but they rejected her because of the colour of her skin. It must have taken enormous courage and determination to continue. And she did manage to begin a career in the late 1920s. But like Roland Hayes, she realised, no, Europe was the answer. She had to get to Europe, she had to study in Europe, she had to have the experience of performing in Europe. And she needed that before she could come back and really establish herself in America. So at the beginning of the 1930s, she came to Europe to study with this woman who went under the name of Madame Charles Cahier. She was actually American. Her real name was Sarah Walker.

But she had been a discovery of Mahler. She was one of Mahler’s proteges. And he wrote the alto part in “Das Lied von der Erde” with her voice in mind. And so having studied with Madame Charles Cahier, she travels round Europe, as Roland Hayes did. She had a very successful debut in London. And she went to Moscow. She sang in Russia, where she was adored. But above all, she was hugely successful in Scandinavia. She was treated as an absolute goddess in the Scandinavian countries. And here she is accompanied by the Finnish composer, Sibelius, who loved her voice. And even rewrote some of his songs, changing the tessitura to suit the voice of Marian Anderson. And Sibelius and Scandinavian songs became a very important part of her repertoire. But also German lieder, of course. And here we see her with the man who became her regular accompanist in the late ‘30s, and right up till the very end of her career. His name is Franz Rupp. And he was a refugee from Nazi Germany. He was not himself Jewish, his wife was. And the first part of his career, he was the regular accompanist of a very, very fine German baritone called Heinrich Schlusnus. And Schlusnus became an ardent Nazi, and denounced his accompanist to the authorities, forcing Rupp to flee for his life.

This is very, this is really painful for me because Schlusnus is such a wonderful singer. He made such wonderful records. And you think, how could he have been such a vile character? But he may be a name that’s actually familiar to South African listeners. Because at the end of the Second World War, there weren’t many places that were willing to hear him again. But he went off to South Africa, and was very popular there. And even recorded songs in Afrikaans. But anyway, this is the former accompanist of Heinrich Schlusnus, and from 1938, the regular accompanist of Marian Anderson. And I’m going to play you a Schubert song that was strongly identified with her, “Der Tod und das Madchen”, “Death and the Maiden”. And it’s a voice that wonderfully suits I think both her personality and her voice. 'Cause she can really show off the amazing depths of this voice. There’s an alternative ending. I’ll play you through to the end. Most singers go up at the end, but she goes right down to a very deep sonorous bottom note at the end of this song.

♪ Music plays ♪

It’s a wonderful sonorous, almost baritonal sound in that final note. And also in that song, we get a strong sense of drama. She characterises the terror, the trembling terror, of the young girl approached by death, and then produces a very different sound for the figure of death. And this sense of drama and her ability to characterise should have made her a natural for the opera house. But sadly, she was not given that opportunity till right at the end of her career. Now, the most famous event in her career happened in 1939. And she was, her manager booked her to do a concert in the Constitution Hall in Washington, which is controlled by the so-called Daughters of the Revolution. And they refused to allow her to sing on the stage of the concert hall, again because of the colour of her skin. And this caused considerable outrage. Eleanor Roosevelt, who you see here, who was a member of the Daughters of the Revolution, resigned in protest. And she helped to set up an alternative venue on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

This was winter, as you can see, she’s wearing a fur coat, or it was actually early Spring. And 75,000 people turned up to hear Marian Anderson. And you can see newsreel footage of this on YouTube. And as well as the 75,000 people, it was broadcast across the United States, and millions of people tuned in to hear her. And it was an important moment, I would say, in the history of the struggle for civil rights in United States. So important that it’s become kind of legendary. Inspired this mural. And oh, here, this photograph, I mean, I think after 1939, she was what we would today call a national treasure. She became a revered figure. And this is a very famous photograph of her, quite late in her career, actually, by Richard Avedon. But as I said, she should have been a natural for the Opera House. She had the voice for it. She certainly had the temperament for it. And sadly, she was denied that experience. So I’m going to play you, she didn’t make many operatic records, most of her records are of songs. But here she sings an aria from Verdi’s opera, Don Carlos, “O don fatale”.

It’s a famous showpiece for a Verdi mezzo. It requires a very considerable range. It has high notes, very low notes. It’s a very showy aria, with a sort of element of circus about it, I suppose. And this recording, I mean, it’s falling off a log for Marian Anderson. She just finds it so easy, almost too easy. It seems to present no vocal difficulties to her whatsoever. What is, I think, slightly disappointing, I mean, I would say that this is one of the best versions, best-sung versions on record, as being recorded by every possible mezzo in the 20th Century, this piece. But what it lacks is, I think a sense of, it lacks a sense of drama. As I said, she could do it, well, we’ve just heard it. But I think it was that you need probably to have the experience in the opera house of singing something like this on stage. And as I said, she only got that experience much later on. But I’ll play you this record anyway 'cause it’s just such a spectacular piece of vocalism.

♪ Music plays ♪

Now, that record came out in 1930. And you would’ve thought anybody listening to it would say, oh, we must get hold of her to sing the big Verdi mezzo roles, Amneris, and so on, Eboli. But no one did for another 25 years. So I’m going to be doing a talk shortly about Rudolf Bing, who took over the direction of the Metropolitan House in 1950. He was of course another European-Jewish refugee in America. And one of the first things he decided when he got to America was that he was going to break down those race barriers, and that he was going to introduce Black singers to Metropolitan audiences. But he was very careful about how he did it. And he realised that, because Marian Anderson was such a revered figure, that she was the one to do it.

Even though by this time, she’s in her late 50s. And her voice was not what it had been. And of course, as I said, she had absolutely no stage experience. So it was a tremendous leap for her at this stage of her career. Again, it took immense courage to do this, to present herself in front of a Metropolitan audience. And she was very carefully prepared in every possible way. She had drama coaches, vocal coaches, and so on. And Bing, he writes about this in his autobiography. He realised that by this time she had certain vocal limitations. So he chose the role of Ulrica in Ballo in Maschera, which has a very low tessitura. Doesn’t have those high notes that we’ve just heard in Eboli’s aria. So that was more comfortable for Marian Anderson at this stage of her career. And it’s also quite a short role. So she appeared on the stage, first Black singer ever, in 1955, and she had a great public and a great critical success. And this almost literally opened the doors to other Black singers.

On the left is Robert McFerrin. He was the first male Black singer to sing on the stage of the Metropolitan. He had just won the auditions, Metropolitan auditions of the air, and that normally led automatically to a contract to sing on the stage of the Metropolitan. But, so being very cautiously delayed, McFerrin’s debut, until Marian Anderson had paved the way by having a great success. And so it was actually a week after Marian Anderson’s debut that Robert McFerrin was introduced in the role of Amonasro. And this again was a very careful calculation on Rudolf Bing’s part. Because he’s Ethiopian. He’s a Black character. So I think that Bing’s calculation was that Metropolitan audiences would be more willing to accept a Black singer in a Black role. So then it was the next season that for the first time, and of course Ulrica again, she’s either a gypsy or she’s Black. She’s one or the other. It depends which version of Ballo in Maschera you use. The Boston version or the Swedish version.

But, so the first time we have a Black singer in a white role at the Metropolitan was 1956. And this was Mattiwilda Dobbs who you see on the right-hand side. Who sang the role of Gilda in Rigoletto. And then the really great event in all of this was the debut in 1961 of Leontyne Price. I’m going to be talking about her in a week or so. In the role of Leonora in Il Trovatore. And she of course became one of the glories in the history of the Metropolitan Opera. But she was intensely aware of the debt that she owed to Marian Anderson. And immediately after her debut in 1961, she wrote a letter to Marian Anderson. She said, “Now I write to you from the bottom of my heart. "Your name belongs with my mama and papa in spirit, "in what it contributed to my peace of mind "and sense of direction on the night of my debut. "You were and still are my beacon of light.” Now the last thing I’m going to talk about tonight is Dorothy Maynor, another absolutely gorgeous, gorgeous voice. She’s a soprano, and it’s a type of sopranos that the Italians will call spinto, spinto. It’s a soprano, the German equivalent would be .

So it’s a voice that is believable, believably young, but it also has to have considerable power for dramatic climaxes. And her career path was a little different. She’s that much younger. She’s born in 1910, again into a very religious family. Her father was a Methodist minister. So her beginnings were similar to the other singer. But because by the time she was starting her career, the European option was really no longer there. In the late 1930s. Thanks to the rise of fascism in Italy and Germany. It was not so straightforward for an Afro-American singer to come to Europe. Her big breakthrough was in 1939, same year as Marian Anderson’s Lincoln Memorial concert.

And it was due to this man you see on the right-hand side, Serge Koussevitzky, who’s the conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. And he was of course Russian-Jewish origin. So as I said, it’s very interesting how again and again it seems to be European-Jewish refugees who enable these singers to move forward. So I’m going to play you two excerpts with Dorothy Maynor to show you this incredible beauty. It is one of the most gorgeous soprano voices. It’s so creamy, it’s so luscious and smooth, absolutely wonderful, wonderful sound. Here she is in an aria of Handel, “O sleep, why dost thou leave me?” With a beautiful trill at the beginning.

♪ Oh ♪ ♪ Sleep ♪ ♪ Oh sleep ♪ ♪ Why dost thou leave me ♪ ♪ Why dost thou leave me ♪ ♪ Why thy visionary joys remove ♪ ♪ Oh ♪ ♪ Sleep ♪ ♪ Oh sleep ♪ ♪ Oh sleep, again deceive me ♪ ♪ Oh sleep, again deceive me ♪ ♪ To my arms ♪ ♪ Restore my wand'ring love ♪ ♪ My wand'ring love ♪ ♪ Wand'ring love ♪ ♪ Restore my wand'ring love ♪

Now that’s a voice, again, that’s really made for opera. I mean, how wonderful that would’ve been to hear her countess in Marriage of Figaro. She would’ve made a wonderful, it’s a Pacini voice. You know, she would’ve been a wonderful Mimi or Butterfly. But sadly she never got the opportunity. But by the time the Metropolitan was opening up to Black singers at the end of the 1950s, it was really too late, and she was too old for it. But I’m going to finish with her singing an operatic aria. This is the aria “Depuis le jour” from Charpentier’s Louise, another very difficult aria needing enormous vocal control and poise.

♪ Music plays ♪

So, we’ve run out of time, so I think I’m going to move on, and see what you’ve got to say.

Q&A and Comments

Marian Anderson, this is Helen saying, Marian Anderson stayed with my grandmother, Iffaginia Becktman in Cincinnati in the 1940s. Because no hotels, good hotels downtown would accept her. Isn’t that shameful, that is just so shocking. And she sang an impromptu concert for invited guests at your granny’s piano. How wonderful for them. Yes, because she’s an important, yes, she took part in demonstration. She was a very important figure in the fight for civil rights. Oh yes, well, I wasn’t aware, thank you. That there’s a three-hour programme on Marian Anderson’s life and her work for Black rights. You say Pierre Monteux was known as Papa Monteux. Yes, everybody loved him. He was clearly a very lovable character. Thank you very much.

Oh, Natasha, my dear friend Natasha. I send you my love. And thank you, Alice. Ooh, do you know what? I forgot to tell you that, that’s so important. Yes, Marian had after, I mean, one of her final trams of course, she wanted very much to go to Israel. She had wanted to go in 1936 for the inaugural season of the Palestine Orchestra famously launched of course by Toscanini. But she wasn’t able to go on that occasion. But she finally got to Israel in 1955. And I think the audience particularly appreciate, she was singing Brahms Alto Rhapsody. But she realised, 1955, it’s only 10 years after the end of the war, and they might not want to hear the German language. I don’t know how she managed to get hold of the translation, but she sang the Brahms Alto Rhapsody in Yiddish. Not Yiddish, in Hebrew.

This is Estelle. I met Marian Anderson when she stood alone and lonely looking outside a famous New York Hospital. She was shocked that I recognised her. Singers, I think singers do like to be recognised. The night before last, I saw Lisette Oropesa. She was attending an opera, another opera. I’d seen her on stage the night before. And I rushed up to her, and I told her she was the toast of Paris and that everybody adored her. And I think she was pleased. Thank you, Ruth. And PBS members can sign up to those programmes online. Thank you very much, Cynthia. Yes, Paul Robeson did have the same struggles, many of the same struggles. And additionally of course, because of his left-wing political opinions when he was denounced as a communist after the Second World War.

And this is Hillel saying, Robert McFerrin’s son is the brilliant jazz singer, I so agree with you. I heard Bobby McFerrin on Radio 3 a couple of years ago, was absolutely blown away by his virtuosity. And immediately bought a set of five CDs of him. He’s brilliant, brilliant vocalist. How sad that often the best people are overlooked for all the wrong reason. Yes, very, thank you, Marcel. And thank you, Ina. Yes, I know, it is sad, isn’t it? That that alliance that there was between oppressed minorities seems to have broken down. Well, you could say that, that it’s a shameful page, but it’s also, it’s a bit, I think it’s a bit like the Dreyfus Affair in France. So yes, it’s shameful, but it’s also actually something to be proud of, that the battle was fought, and eventually it was won. You know, I’m having a terrible senior moment because there is, who’s, God, the very, very famous American soprano who’s just retired. Ugh. Whose voice reminds me quite a lot actually of Dorothy Maynor. Famous Thais, famous Marschallin. Somebody’s going to tell me. I don’t know why I can’t think of the name.

Yes, Bobby McFerrin. There is a book or research that you can, on U.S. racialism on excluding African-American singers from, I don’t, well, I don’t know if there’s, Louise, I don’t know if there’s a particular, there must be, I suppose. But as I said, I’m reading the memoirs of Rudolf Bing at the moment. And he writes a lot about it, very interestingly. And Dorothy Maynor, thank you for reminding me. She founded the important Harlem School for the Arts in 1964 in order to support kids from poor backgrounds. Thank you very much, Cheryl.

Q: What about the singer in “Red Velvet?” A: I don’t know that, Judy. Is that a film, “Red Velvet?” I don’t know.

Anyway, thank you all very much, and thank you for your patience, and sorry about the delay at the beginning, for once actually, it was not my incompetence holding us up. It was just an accident. And thank you all for your patience. And see you again on Wednesday.