Anna Schoen-René

Anna Eugénie Schoen-René (* 1864 in Koblenz ; † 1942 ) was a German-American opera singer (soprano) and vocal teacher.

Schoen-René studied at the Royal Academic University for Performing Music in Berlin and, on the recommendation of her teacher there, became a singing student of Pauline Viardot-García and made her debut as Cherubino in the Marriage of Figaro , Zerlina in Don Giovanni and Marcelline in Fidelio at the Princely Opera of Saxony-Altenburg. In Paris she appeared in concerts under the direction of Charles Gounod and in 1892 received an offer for an engagement at the Metropolitan Opera .

However, a severe tuberculosis infection ended her career as a singer. She spent three years with her sister in Minneapolis, where she founded two glee clubs at the University of Minnesota , which she expanded into a choral union that performed in operas and oratorios. She gave lectures in the history of music at the university and was involved in founding the Faculty of Music. Encouraged by Walter Damrosch , she founded a small orchestra that later became the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra and the North Western Symphony Orchestra of St. Paul . She was probably the first woman to conduct an orchestra in the USA.

In the summers she traveled to Paris to continue her own training with Pauline Viardot-Garcia . After training as a singing teacher with her brother Manuel García , she returned to Berlin in 1909 as a singing teacher. After the outbreak of the First World War she returned to the USA, whose citizenship she had held since 1906. From 1925 she taught at the Juilliard School of Music . In 1941 she published her memoir under the title America's Musical Inheritance: Memories and Reminiscences .

Schoen-René was considered one of the most important singing teachers in the western world in the 1920s and 1930s. Her strict insistence on discipline earned her the nickname "the Prussian General" among her students. These include singers such as Lucie Manén , Florenzio Constantino , Risé Stevens , Mack Harrell , Kitty Carlisle , Judith Doniger , Lanny Ross , Marshall Bartholomew , George Meader , Sonia Essen , Paul Robeson , Thelma Votipka , Lillian Blauvelt , Florence Easton , Karin Branzell , Florence Austral , Charles Kullman , Marie Tiffany , Maria von Maximovitch , Julius Huehn , Eva Gauthier , George Britton , Kitty Carlisle and Margaret Harshaw .

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personal data
SURNAME	Schoen-René, Anna
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Schoen-René, Anna Eugénie (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German-American opera singer (soprano) and vocal teacher
DATE OF BIRTH	1864
PLACE OF BIRTH	Koblenz
DATE OF DEATH	1942