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Estelle Pinckney Clough

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Estelle Pinckney Clough
Estelle Pinckney Clough, from a 1901 publication
Estelle Pinckney Clough, from a 1901 publication
Born1866
DiedJune 8, 1929
Worcester, Massachusetts, U.S.
Other namesEstella Pinckney, Stella Pinckney Clough
OccupationOpera vocalist
RelativesInez Clough (sister-in-law)

Estelle Pinckney Clough (1866 – June 8, 1929) was an American opera singer and concert performer, based in Worcester, Massachusetts. She was known for her performances in the title role of Aida in the early 1900s.

Career

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Clough, a coloratura soprano,[1] was one of several African-American sopranos who sang the title role in Verdi's Aida around the turn into the twentieth century, along with Caterina Jarboro and Florence Cole Talbert.[2][3] Clough was Aida when the opera was performed by the Theodore Drury Opera Company in New York in 1903 and 1906.[4][5][6] She was a soloist in Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's Hiawatha in Washington, D.C. in 1904,[7] sharing the bill with Harry Burleigh.[8] A 1905 review praised her "wonderful timbre and flexibility of her well-cultured voice," adding that "she was loudly encored, and in her response with more familiar songs the mellow sweetness of her voice was evidenced."[9] In 1906, she was soloist at the first concert of the Coleridge-Taylor Singing Union in New Haven,[10] and sang at a fundraiser for the Colored Men's Branch of the YMCA.[11]

In 1908, Clough sang at a memorial service for inventor Joseph Lee, with her daughter as her accompanist.[12] In 1911, she and her daughter were on the program at a commemoration of the centenary of abolitionist Charles Sumner at Faneuil Hall.[13] In 1916, she sang at a tribute to newspaper editor William Monroe Trotter.[14] In 1918, she sang at a benefit concert to raise funds for "necessary comforts for the colored soldiers" serving in World War I.[15]

Clough was also a soloist at church concerts,[16][17] and taught voice students from her own studio in Worcester.[18][19]

Personal life

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Pinckney married postal carrier Benjamin H. Clough in 1889; his sister Inez Clough was also a noted performer.[20] They had a daughter, Harriet, who died from tuberculosis as a young woman in 1913. Clough died in 1929, in her sixties, in Worcester.[21]

References

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  1. ^ Brawley, Benjamin (1910). The Negro in Literature and Art. Author. p. 50.
  2. ^ Caplan, Lucy (2024-11-01). ""An Incredible Freedom": Black Sopranos and the Role of Aida". Boston Lyric Opera. Retrieved 2025-02-11.
  3. ^ "Expressional Power of the Colored Race". Werner's Magazine. 26 (6): 470. February 1901.
  4. ^ Scheurer, Timothy E. (1989). American Popular Music: The nineteenth century and Tin Pan Alley. Popular Press. p. 83. ISBN 978-0-87972-466-5.
  5. ^ Southern, Eileen. "Estelle Pinckney Clough" Biographical dictionary of Afro-American and African musicians (1982).
  6. ^ Cuney-Hare, Maud (2020-09-28). Negro Musicians and their Music. Library of Alexandria. ISBN 978-1-4656-0478-1.
  7. ^ Green, Jeffrey (1990). ""The Foremost Musician of His Race": Samuel Coleridge-Taylor of England, 1875-1912". Black Music Research Journal. 10 (2): 233–252. doi:10.2307/779387. ISSN 0276-3605.
  8. ^ Green, Jeffrey (2015-10-06). Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, a Musical Life. Routledge. p. 132. ISBN 978-1-317-32263-4.
  9. ^ "H. H. Garnet Club's Concert". The New York Age. 1905-06-01. p. 3. Retrieved 2025-02-11 – via Newspapers.com.
  10. ^ "Taylor Singing Union Will Give Their First Public Concert on Friday Evening". The Morning Journal-Courier. 1906-03-02. p. 6. Retrieved 2025-02-11 – via Newspapers.com.
  11. ^ "The Allen Recital". The New York Age. 1906-01-04. p. 8. Retrieved 2025-02-11 – via Newspapers.com.
  12. ^ "Bostonian Eulogized; Memorial Service in Honor of Joseph Lee". The New York Age. 1908-11-12. p. 1. Retrieved 2025-02-11 – via Newspapers.com.
  13. ^ "John L. Bates Will Preside". Boston Evening Transcript. 1911-01-05. p. 8. Retrieved 2025-02-11 – via Newspapers.com.
  14. ^ "Plan Concert for an Editor; Colored Artists to Appear Thursday Night". Boston Post. 1916-04-03. p. 2. Retrieved 2025-02-11 – via Newspapers.com.
  15. ^ "To Raise a Fund for the Colored Soldiers". The Boston Globe. 1918-02-18. p. 2. Retrieved 2025-02-11 – via Newspapers.com.
  16. ^ "Concert and Supper Given under Auspices of Mt. Calvary Baptist Church in Foresters' Hall". Norwich Bulletin. 1911-12-01. p. 5. Retrieved 2025-02-11 – via Newspapers.com.
  17. ^ "Fair Opens with Concert". The Boston Daily Globe. 1905-11-02. p. 24. Retrieved 2025-02-11 – via Newspapers.com.
  18. ^ Nettles, Darryl Glenn (2003-03-06). African American Concert Singers Before 1950. McFarland. p. 49. ISBN 978-0-7864-1467-3.
  19. ^ Caplan, Lucy (2025-02-04). Dreaming in Ensemble: How Black Artists Transformed American Opera. Harvard University Press. p. 60. ISBN 978-0-674-29951-1.
  20. ^ "Remarkable Women of Color in Worcester". Library and Archives. 2023-11-03. Retrieved 2025-02-11.
  21. ^ Williams, Cliff (1929-06-15). "General News, Boston, Mass". The New York Age. p. 9. Retrieved 2025-02-11 – via Newspapers.com.
[edit]
  • Jessica Joy, "The Legacy of Black Aida" Classical Queens (March 17, 2023), a podcast about some of the first women of color to sing the part of Aida, including Clough
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