These were the
words of Winifred Cecil, the noted
singer and teacher and founder of JOY IN SINGING, about the plight of many
young singers. She was resolved to pass on to them the refinements of the
art of song she learned from her mentors, Marcella Sembrich and
Elena Gerhardt. The opportunity came in 1952 when, after one of her
recitals, she was invited by Town Hall to preside over a series of master
classes in which she would help gifted singers with interpretation, stage
deportment and communication. For it is in these, she believed, that lies
the "joy in singing." This was the embryo.
Six years later, in
1958, JOY IN SINGING was born as an award program, and as a publicly
supported organization. The winners of the annual awards received a prize
recital, at first given in Town Hall. Then in 1969, Ms. Cecil was invited by
the Library and Museum of the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center to move the
master classes to that location, and the Award Recitals to Alice Tully Hall.
Support for JOY IN SINGING was swift in coming; among the first to back the
budding organization was Arturo Toscanini, who established a scholarship
with his contribution.
After the death of
Winifred Cecil in 1984, so many singers appealed to the organization to keep
the unique idea of JOY IN SINGING alive that the Board of Directors decided
to continue the program, and in 1986 invited the well-known singer and
teacher Paul Sperry to take over as
Music Director. In the years since, the singing sessions and the award
program have continued to flourish.
In addition JOY IN
SINGING has expanded its activities in two main directions. First, an
earlier interest in performing American songs was revived sixteen years ago,
and developed into an annual program to honor American composers of song.
The purpose is to give composers, especially those living, first rate
performances of their work, and to help those at the beginning of their
careers to become better known. Composers honored thus far are:
Leslie Adams, Amy Beach, Christopher Berg, William
Bolcom, Victoria Bond, Theodore Chanler, Tom Cipullo, Celius Dougherty,
Vernon Duke,
Arthur Farwell, Kenneth Frazelle,
Scott
Gendel,
Ricky Ian Gordon,
Charkes Tomlinson
Griffes,
Daron Aric Hagen,
John
Harbison,
Lee Hoiby, Richard Hundley, Libby Larsen,
Lowell
Liebermann,
John Musto,
Vincent
Persichetti, Russell Platt,
Russell Platt,
Ned Rorem, Larry Alan Smith, Richard
Pearson Thomas, Virgil Thomson and Joelle Wallach.
Second, for the past five years JOY IN SINGING had arranged lectures and
concerts which were incorporated into the offerings of the Public Library
for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center.
JOY IN SINGING points
with pride at the list of award winners whose careers it has helped to
launch. These include, among others, Betty Allen (well-known
recitalist, oratorio soloist, teacher, longtime head of the Harlem School of
the Arts, and a major force in many musical organizations), Nico Castel
(outstandingly successful in his thirty-one years at the Met, and as a
recitalist, linguist and translator),
Sandra Warfield (international opera career, including Dalila at the
Met), Doris Yarick (prominent in German opera houses and at Santa Fe,
and now head of the Voice Department of Yale), the late William Parker
(one of the most outstanding American recitalists of his time), Karen
Holvik
(active recitalist and opera singer), Carl Halvorson (based in Paris;
in great demand in Europe and the U.S. as a recitalist, in opera and with
orchestras), André Solomon-Glover (frequent soloist in New York City
and elsewhere, a star in the recent Show Boat on Broadway and on
tour), Randall Scarlata (at the beginning of a very promising career,
winner of the prestigious Schubert International Competition in Vienna).
JOY IN SINGING
continues in its unique and valuable mission to help advance the careers of
gifted singers and composers of song.