The University Record, March 29, 1999
Editor’s Note: This article is one of a series of profiles of U-M alumni who have made significant and lasting contributions through their research, scholarship and creative activity. Expanded versions of these articles are available on the research Web site at www.research.umich.edu/research/news/michigangreats.html.
By Lee Katterman
Office of the Vice President for Research
When Jessye Norman enrolled in the School of Music in the fall of 1967, she had been taking formal voice lessons for only four years. She started them at Howard University in 1962, continuing during the intervening summer at the Peabody Conservatory. By the time she arrived in Ann Arbor, this young woman was still in the early stages of learning about what might be possible for her as a singer.
Willis Patterson, associate dean and professor of music, joined the faculty about the same time as Norman studied here, and recalls being very impressed by this developing talent.
“She had all of the tools–she was very intelligent, a keen musician, had an aptitude with languages, and a voice with qualities you encounter a few times in a generation. I’ve never heard another like her in all my years at the U-M,” Patterson says. He has since had many opportunities to work with Norman, most recently on a holiday television special produced for PBS last December.
Jessye Norman was born Sept. 15, 1945, in Augusta, Ga. She was one of five children in “a very warm, supportive, musical family,” Patterson says. From an early age, Norman enjoyed performing–at school, church, Girl Scout meetings and once at a supermarket opening. She says she fell in love with opera after hearing a broadcast of the Metropolitan Opera when she was 9 years old.
At the School of Music, she studied with Pierre Bernoc, a visiting professor that year, and Elizabeth Mannion, who was both a performer and a faculty member. After she received a master’s of music, Norman spent the summer at Interlochen, studying with Mannion and Patterson to prepare for the International Music Competition in Munich. She won that competition, and soon received many offers to sing in Europe.
She debuted with the Deutsche Opera in Berlin in 1969–at age 23–singing the role of Elisabeth in Richard Wagner’s “Tannhuser.” Over the years, she has performed in the major opera houses and concert halls of the world, from Milan and London to New York and Los Angeles. She has won many major singing competitions, and made dozens of recordings over the years, several of which have won Grammy Awards. Norman has received several honorary degrees, including one from the U-M in 1987.
Norman has been an outstanding supporter of the University and the School of Music. She has performed benefit concerts, hosted events for the School, and met with students to answer questions about her singing career and the students’ hopes and fears for their own careers.
Recently, the University was able to help Norman and choreaographer and dancer Bill T. Jones. Norman approached Kenneth Fischer, director of the University Musical Society, about the possibility of finding a space to use for a week. She and Jones had been commissioned by the Lincoln Center to create a work that will premiere there in May.
Fischer worked with Barbara O’Keefe, director of the Media Union, to arrange use of a studio there in February. Following an intense week of work, both Norman and Jones were ecstatic, telling Fischer they got more done in five days at the Media Union than they did in three months in New York.
Fischer has been able to witness Norman’s work many times, and calls her “the best in the world.” He points to an event in 1997, when Norman was presented with the University Musical Society Distinguished Artist Award through the Ford Honors Program. At that ceremony, a videotape was played showing clips of Norman performing at President Clinton’s inauguration, the French Bicentennial and the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.
“These are the biggest world-stage performances there are, demonstrating that there’s only one Jessye Norman.”
