Sylvia Olden Lee, Renowned Vocal Coach/Pianist
Bill Schenley
http://www.realcities.com/mld/inquirer/news/obituaries/8459497.htm
World-renowned vocal coach and pianist Sylvia Olden Lee, 86,
who coached opera and spirituals divas Kathleen Battle,
Jessye Norman, and Marian Anderson, died of pancreatic
cancer April 10 at her Germantown home.
"Sylvia amazed me with her breadth of knowledge and
enthusiasm for teaching," Norman said Friday in a telephone
interview from her London home. "No matter what the
subject - baroque, spiritual, you name it - Sylvia had been
there, done that, and was willing to share with us.
"There are so many of us who consider ourselves Sylvia
disciples," Norman said. "It is hard to imagine a world
without her."
Singer and godson Bobby McFerrin said Friday: "I don't think
there are enough adjectives to describe Sylvia's boundless
energy. She was on fire all the time.
"Sylvia was one of the best-known vocal coaches in the
world. Her knowledge about Negro spirituals was boundless,"
said McFerrin, whose parents - singers Sara Copper and
Robert McFerrin - were coached by Mrs. Lee.
Sara Copper McFerrin said, "She taught me musical phrases
and nuances" - lessons that were delivered with wit and
humor.
Battle had one proviso before agreeing to perform in a
television special from Carnegie Hall in 1997: that Mrs. Lee
be her coach.
Mrs. Lee's musical journey began in Meridian, Miss.
At age 8, she accompanied her mother, opera singer Sylvia
Alice Ward, and her father, James Olden, a classical singer
and a minister, on the piano.
By age 10, she was giving piano recitals outside her home.
At 16, she sang at the White House for President Franklin D.
Roosevelt's first inauguration, in 1933. She was invited to
sing in the White House a second time, in 1942, at the
behest of Eleanor Roosevelt.
In 1938 she graduated from Oberlin Conservatory of Music,
which she attended on a scholarship, and later taught at
several institutions of higher learning, including Howard
University, Oberlin College, Columbia University, and
Dillard University in New Orleans. During this time, she
also toured throughout the South with Paul Robeson. And in
1952, she was a Fulbright Scholar, studying at Santa Cecilia
Academy in Rome.
She had been a singing coach on the staff of the
Metropolitan Opera House in New York for a year when she
encouraged the Met to invite Marian Anderson to perform. In
1955, Anderson became the first black person to sing on that
stage.
In 1944, she married violinist and conductor Everett Lee Jr.
Mrs. Lee and her husband worked in Germany for seven years
starting in 1956. He could not find a job conducting in
America so he accepted a post in Sweden in 1963. She moved
to Germantown in 1970 to become a vocal coach in the opera
department at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.
The couple divorced in the early 1980s. She was on the
Curtis faculty until 1990.
With sass and spontaneity, Mrs. Lee continued to coach opera
singers at the Met and conduct master voice classes at
universities throughout the world until shortly before her
death.
Her daughter, Eve, said her mother knew 1,000 arias, 500 of
them by memory. "Mama didn't use music," she said.
In addition to her daughter and former husband, Mrs. Lee is
survived by a son, Everett 3d; and two granddaughters.
A memorial service will be held at 1 p.m. June 26 - on what
would have been her 87th birthday - at Union Baptist Church,
1910 Fitzwater St., Philadelphia.
Memorial donations may be made to the Sylvia Olden Lee Voice
Scholarship, Oberlin Conservatory of Music, Oberlin, Ohio
44074.