Waltraud Meier Sings Strauss For President Obama At Schloss Elmau

Wagnerian soprano Waltraud Meier performs "Zueignung" at the Schloss Elmau Castle for the G7 Summit.

"Accompanied by beer, sausages and men in lederhosen, Barack Obama received a warm welcome to the Bavarian Alps from Angela Merkel on Sunday, before two days of intensive G7 summit talks. Alpine horns and locals in traditional dress greeted the US president as he arrived in Krün, a village close to the G7 venue of Schloss Elmau, before the two leaders sat down to a breakfast of the local sausage, weisswurst, a glass of weissbier and pretzels. Locals cheered as Obama saluted them with a 'Grüss Gott' – a traditional greeting – against a stunning backdrop of pine forests and snowcapped mountains, telling them: 'That was without question, the best Alpine horn performance I’ve ever heard.'....The talks began discussing the state of the global

economy, including the European debt crisis. A second meeting was expected to deal with international trade and standards, including the controversial TTIP deal between the EU and the US. Over a working supper, cooked by a Michelin starred chef, they were due to discuss pressing foreign policy issues, including what Obama referred to earlier in the day as 'Russian aggression in Ukraine.' On Monday the leaders are expected to discuss the climate, global health, terrorism, the empowerment of women and development. NGOs were trying to put last-minute pressure on Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper as it emerged that he is allegedly blocking agreements on development goals....Ahead of supper they were to be entertained in the castle’s grand hall by star sopranist Waltraud Meier performing Richard Strauss lieder. Strauss had a house in Garmisch, the town closest to the summit venue, and died there in 1949." [Source] Watch two videos after the jump.

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Jessye Norman Talks Racism, President Obama, And Hillary Clinton

Politically Inclined: Soprano Jessye Norman is ready to support Hillary Clinton for 2016. (Photo: Sarah Lee/Guardian)

"Looking back at her childhood, the opera star Jessye Norman says she cannot remember a time she was not trying to sing. 'I liked to put on some of my mother’s costume jewellery and a feather boa or something, and pretend I was some grand singer,' she recalled recently. Today, although Norman no longer performs in full-scale opera, she is solidly established as a 'grande dame'. Last week, Norman, 69, stormed centre-stage once again with some full-throated support for her friend Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid. 'I would certainly support this enormous brain,

The soprano seen here in December 1997 with President 
Bill Clinton and First Lady Hillary Clinton at the Kennedy
Center Honors during the playing of the National Anthem.

this incredibly generous heart this amazing woman,' she proclaimed. The celebrated soprano’s bold contribution to the presidential race followed fast on her recent public complaint that many attacks on Barack Obama’s record are fuelled by hidden racism. She alleged that 'racialism was practised at the highest levels of government', adding: 'We should be better than that, we should be bigger than that.' For Norman, the culprits are mostly 'on the other side of the aisle' – Republican Congress members who have plotted against President Obama since his inauguration, she claims. If the Democrats felt the lack of a Wagnerian Valkyrie on their side, the role is now filled. And what’s more, they have found someone who can bridge the awkward gap between Ms Clinton’s supporters and Obama’s people. Norman is that rare thing, a prominent member of both camps.....Political awakening came young. While she has described her childhood home in Augusta, Georgia, as 'our little Garden of Eden', her middle-class, church-going family were involved in the civil rights struggle. So Norman and her four siblings were aware, though sheltered from the harsher side of segregation: 'I came from a very strong core of people who told us, practically on a daily basis,

Jessye Norman receiving the 2009 National Medal of Arts
 from President Barack Obama at an East Room ceremony 
at the White House.

that, ‘You are as good as any other of God’s creations, and you will hear something different when you’re outside of this house but know that the truth is here’.' Her first experience of 'American apartheid' came as a five-year-old on a station platform, waiting in her Sunday best for a train to take her to visit relatives in Philadelphia. ;I of course had too much energy to sit there and I saw the sign and it did say ‘whites only’ and I thought, well, there wasn’t anybody sitting there, so what difference would it make if I were to go over there and sit and play? Why would it bother anybody? Of course my mother and father took a different view.' She understood more later when she saw President Eisenhower on one of his regular golfing trips to Augusta. Watching him walk into church, her father informed her they were not allowed to worship in the same place. Later, as an adult, she kept a journal, noting down instances of casual racism. She stopped when it began to depress her: 'It became clear to me after doing this for a while that I wasn’t serving any purpose except to make myself sad.' Further political insight came when she sang in Berlin, regularly passing through Checkpoint Charlie. She was impressed by the love of the arts she found in East Berlin. 'Even though they lived

In 2013, Jessye Norman sang during a ceremony honoring 
the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington for U.S. 
Rep. John Lewis, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi,
 and Speaker of the House John Boehner. 

under the oppressive regimes, their spirits were not squelched'....Landmarks of her career include singing at both Ronald Reagan’s and Bill Clinton’s second inaugurations and a recording of Wagner’s Liebestod in the late 1980s. Her farewell performance at the Met in the Makropulos Case was hailed as a great achievement in 1996, but since then she has focused on highly lucrative recitals." [Source] Click here to see a list of other opera singers that have performed at Presidential Inaugurations since 1941. Watch videos of Jessye Norman singing Copland's "Simple Gifts" at the Inauguration of Ronald Reagan in 1985 and a medley of spirituals for the Inauguration of Bill Clinton in 1997. Other political or government-related performances highlighted during her career include singing for Queen Elizabeth II's sixtieth birthday celebration in 1986; performing the French national anthem, 'La Marseillaise,' to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution on July 14, 1989; singing at Tchaikovsky's 150th Birthday Gala in Leningrad in 1990; performing for the 700th Celebration Party of Swiss National Day in 1991; singing at the funeral of former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in 1994; performed at the opening ceremonies of the 1996 Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta, singing "Faster, Higher, Stronger"; On June 28, 2001, she and light lyric coloratura soprano Kathleen Battle performed Vangelis' Mythodea at the Temple of Olympian Zeus in Athens, Greece; On March 11, 2002, Norman performed "America the Beautiful" at a service unveiling two monumental columns of light at the site of the former World Trade Center, as a memorial for the victims of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York City. [Source]

Leontyne Price Part Of Historical Campaign Honoring African Americans

"On October 28, 2008, just days before the election of Barack Obama, the first African American President of the United States, my first son Chase was born. On July 9, 2012, a few months before President Obama's historic re-election, my second son Amari was born. Six months later, a few days before February 2013, I began to reflect on my sons and their promising future – specifically the opportunities they could pursue as a result of the progress and achievements made by individuals past and present. I also thought about the responsibility and at times the fear, I carry as a mother raising Black boys. I thought about how just one-year prior, Trayvon Martin was murdered. The murder and circumstances surrounding Trayvon's death awakened my consciousness and moved me to create the 'I Am Trayvon Martin' photo campaign. It was through this painful time for the Martin family and America that I came to realize that my lens could truly serve as a microphone that could amplify the feelings, fears, dreams and even the pain of a community. The Because of Them, We Can campaign was birthed out of my desire to share our rich history and promising future through images that would refute stereotypes and build the esteem of our children. While I originally intended to publish the campaign photos, via social media, during Black History Month, I quickly realized how necessary it was to go further. With so many achievers to highlight, and thousands of children to engage and inspire, 28 days wasn't enough. On the last day of February, with just 28 photographs in my collection, I decided to resign from my job in order to continue the campaign. On March 1, 2013, after most national and local conversations about Black History and Achievement ended, I released a photo of a mini-inspired Phyllis Wheatley and began the journey to continue the project for a full year. A year later I have come to the conclusion that even 365 days aren't enough. What began as a mother's passion project quickly evolved into a movement. Today we are committed as ever before to encourage and empower people of all ages and hues to dream out loud and reimagine themselves as greater than they are, simply by connecting the dots between the past, the present and the future." [Source] Watch a video for the campaign and see the original Leontyne Price photo that inspired the above poster image, after the jump.

Singer, Dancer, Poetess: Maya Angelou Dead At Age 86

Maya Angelou seen here with President Obama in 2011 when she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

"After graduation, she and her brother rejoined their mother, who had moved to San Francisco. She attended George Washington High School and won a scholarship to study drama and dance at the California Labor School. To earn pocket money, she worked as a streetcar conductor and was, by her account, the first African American woman to hold the job. At 16, after a clumsy sexual encounter with a neighborhood boy, she became pregnant and gave birth to her son, Clyde Bailey Johnson, nicknamed Guy. She graduated from San Francisco's Mission High School and struggled to raise her son on her own through a succession of jobs, including 'a shake dancer in nightclubs, fry cook in hamburger joints, dinner cook in a Creole restaurant and once had a job in a mechanic's shop, taking the paint off cars with my hands.' In San Diego, she was a madam who managed a couple of prostitutes. For a period of time, she was addicted to drugs. In 1949, she married a white ex-sailor, Tosh Angelos, but they divorced after three years. Commandingly tall at 6 feet, with a deep voice and theatrical manner, she moved to New York to study dance, then returned to San Francisco, sharing billing as a singer at the Purple Onion cabaret with comedian Phyllis Diller, who would become a close friend. Riffing off her ex-husband's last name and her brother's nicknames for her, she began performing as Maya Angelou. She won a role in a touring production of Porgy and Bess and performed in 22 countries from 1954 to 1955." [Source] Rare photos after the jump of this wonderful human.

When Joseph Calleja Met The Leader Of The Free World

(Photo: White House)

"Joseph Calleja meeting US President Barack Obama after he performed at the Kennedy Centre Honors last month in tribute to American soprano Martina Arroyo. The tenor is currently appearing at the Metropolitan Opera in New York before moving on to London for a seven-performance run of Faust at the Royal Opera House and a solo concert at the Royal Festival Hall." [Source]

Renée Fleming Joins Aretha Franklin & Janelle Monáe For NCTL

(Photo: Decca/Andrew Eccles)

Watch the 2013 National Christmas Tree Lighting on Friday, December 6 starting at 4:30pm – featuring The Avett Brothers, Joshua Bell, Renée Fleming, Aretha Franklin, Janelle Monáe, Arturo Sandoval, Train and more! For more details, click here. Renée was most recently at the White House to receive the National Medal of Arts from President Obama in July 2013. The soprano has had an ongoing relationship in the political capital since 1999 when she performed for President Bill Clinton during a Christmas celebration. She has also sung regularly for the Kennedy Center Honors and Presidential Inaugurations. [Source] Also on the concert program, for the tree lighting ceremony, will be violinist Joshua Bell. Due to their most recent collaboration, they may very will be performing together. Stay tuned for more details on additional entertainers and what the musical program will include in its entirety.

Renée Fleming Receives National Medal of Arts From President Obama

Seems as though the soprano cracks up the commander-in-chief while receiving her honor. For a complete list of honorees go to the official White House website by clicking here. Look at more pictures of the ceremony and watch the video (Ms. Fleming comes on at 14:09...) after the jump.