Anita Darian
Anita Margaret Esgandarian (born April 26, 1927 in Detroit , † February 1, 2015 in Oceanside , Nassau County ) was an American opera singer (soprano) and musician ( kazoo ) who, because of her four- octave voice, also played The Armenian Yma Sumac was called.
Life
Darian came from an Armenian immigrant family and abbreviated her name when she began her musical career. She attended Cooley High School in Detroit and the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia; then she studied at the Juilliard School of Music . In 1954 she worked as a singer with the Sauter-Finegan Orchestra ("I Could Have Danced All Night"), as a background singer at the end of the decade with LaVern Baker and King Curtis . Their first album, Hawaiian Paradise , was created in 1959 and was recorded in the Exotica genre with Bill Jaffee and arranger Jim Timmens . Furthermore, she presented the album East of the Sun with music from the Middle East on Kapp Records in 1959 , on which she was accompanied by the Frank Hunter Orchestra.
During this time Darian worked with the vocal ensembles The Tokens (" The Lion Sleeps Tonight ", 1961), Mickey & Sylvia ("Love Is Strange", 1957) as well as with Burt Bacharach , Dinah Washington and Patti Page . She also appeared as a kazoo player with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra under Leonard Bernstein . She made her Carnegie Hall debut with Mark Buzzi's Concerto for Kazoo and Orchestra in the New York Philharmonic Orchestra's Young People concert program . Darian appeared in the role of Natalie in Johann Strauss ' Die Fledermaus and as Pitti-Sing in Gilbert and Sullivan's operetta Der Mikado (1959), in the role of Julie in the musical Show Boat (1961). In several City Center productions she sang in the role of Lady Thiang in Rodgers & Hammerstein's musical The King and I . Darian has also appeared on several television shows such as Producers' Showcase (1957), Tonight Starring Jack Paar (1959/60) and The Bell Telephone Hour (1961).
Web links
- Anita Darian at Allmusic (English)
- Anita Darian at Discogs (English)
- Literature by and about Anita Darian in the catalog of the German National Library
- Anita Darian in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Obituary in The New York Times
- ↑ Portrait page at Masterworks Broadway
- ↑ Tom Lord : The Jazz Discography (online, accessed February 13, 2014)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Darian, Anita |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Esgandarian, Anita Margaret |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American opera singer (soprano) and musician (kazoo) |
| DATE OF BIRTH | April 26, 1927 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Detroit |
| DATE OF DEATH | February 1, 2015 |
| Place of death | Oceanside , Nassau County |