Madame lillian evanti biography
Lillian Evanti - White House Historical Association...
Madame Lilian Evanti - D.C. Native
Annie Lillian Evans, who would later become the famed classical singer Lillian Evanti, was by many accounts the first African American to sing grand opera professionally anywhere in the world.
Madame lillian evanti biography
She was born in Washington, D.C. into a prominent, historically significant family. The Evans family claimed a Revolutionary War soldier, two abolitionists who took part in the Harper’s Ferry Raid, and the first African-American United States Senator among their ancestors.
Evanti’s own parents were well educated and accomplished; both dedicated their lives to education, her mother as a music teacher, her father, Wilson Evans, was a medical doctor and teacher in the city. And, he was the founder and principal of Washington, D.C.’s Armstrong High School.
After graduating from her father’s school, although gifted in music, in 1908 Lillian entered Miner Teachers College for the education of black elementary school teachers and briefly ta