Frances James

Mary Frances James (born February 3, 1903 in Saint John , New Brunswick , † August 22, 1988 in Victoria , British Columbia ) was a Canadian soprano and music teacher.

James studied at the McGill Conservatory with Walter Clapperton and was solo singer at St James' United Church in Montreal from 1925 to 1929 . She also appeared on the radio and sang at the Canadian Pacific Railway Festivals in Quebec, Winnipeg, Regina, Calgary, Banff, Lake Louise, Vancouver and Victoria. In 1930 she came to Toronto for an engagement for two radio productions. Here she was (1934) a student of the song specialist Emmy Heim and studied German and French lyrics with Lisette Patterson and voice training with Jeanne Dusseau . She later completed her vocal training with Enrico Rosati and Maria Kurenko in New York and with Roland Hayes in Boston.

In 1931 she sang the world premiere of Healey Willan's opera Prince Charlie and Flora in Banff and met her future husband Murray Adaskin . She appeared in 1934 with the Toronto Bach Choir under Reginald Stewart and was a soloist in the 1936 performance of Beethoven's Missa solemnis with the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir . She made her debut at the Hart House Sunday concerts in 1925 with the pianist Gwendolyn Koldofsky .

In the 1940s and 1950s, James was best known for appearing for the CBC on series such as Friendly Music , Canadian Mosaic , Footlights , Midweek Recital and Distinguished Artists . In 1942 she sang six oratorios by Handel (under Ernest MacMillan ) and Willan's Transit through Fire , in 1945 the Canadian radio premiere of Paul Hindemith's Das Marienleben and in 1946 presented 150 songs in the twenty-part Midweek Recital series, including Hindemith's Nine English Songs . She sang in the premieres of Benjamin Britten's Les Illuminations (1946), Peter Grimes (1949) and Albert Herring (1951) and in 1953 in Bernard Naylor's King Solomon's Prayer .

In concerts she sang a. a. Harry Somers ' Three Walt Whitman Songs (1946), John Weinzweigs Of Time, Rain and the World and Barbara Pentland's Song Cycle . In 1950 she went to Santa Barbara with her husband and sang Mills College Darius Milhaud's song cycle Rêves . When her husband got a teaching position at the University of Saskatchewan in 1952 , she began teaching singing there. After Adaskin's retirement in 1972, both went to Victoria, where they continued to teach at the Victoria Conservatory of Music and at the University of Victoria . James' students included a. Sheila Osborn , Audrey Shore Dowler , Greta Clark , Margaret Ready Scarsgard , Dorothy Howard , Catherine Lewis and Jane MacKenzie .

Web links

• Frances James ( English, French ) In: Encyclopedia of Music in Canada . published by The Canadian Encyclopedia .