As we learned today, our former voice teacher.
Professor Lucretia Anderson West
passed away in the USA on February 21, 2022 at the age of 99.
Lucretia West was a highly esteemed colleague who showed many of our voice students good paths to follow. She will be remembered by all who knew her.
Hartmut Höll
Rector
_____
Lucretia West was born on November 13, 1922 in Spotsylvania, Virginia, and grew up in Washington, DC. She attended Washington DC public schools and later studied at Howard University before moving to Switzerland to begin her career as a musician. In 1951, she was one of the first recipients of a scholarship from the John Hay Whitney Foundation, named after the former U.S. ambassador to England, philanthropist, and publisher of the New York Herald Tribune. The foundation awarded scholarships of $3,000 at the time to 53 individuals who "did not have the opportunity to fully develop their abilities because of arbitrary barriers such as race, cultural background or place of residence." Lucretia West then continued her education in Belgium and Switzerland. In 1957, she returned to the United States, where she briefly became a member of the New York City Opera Company. For a few months she turned back to Europe, where she remained for the duration of her career. For more than 70 years she performed in Switzerland and Germany, where she also taught. She held dual citizenship, of which she was very proud. Her voice was between mezzo-soprano and alto, and it was very important for her to achieve almost perfect diction in speech. Her recordings include works by Brahms, Mahler, Mozart, Schubert, Offenbach and Monteverdi. Her interpretations of spirituals were also particularly popular, including that of her favorite song, "Every time I feel the Spirit I will pray."
Her performing career spanned Germany, Austria, Yugoslavia, and occasional tours back to the United States, prompting the Los Angeles Sentinel to remark in 1957 that West "has become famous in recent years in the leading opera houses and concert halls abroad, but ... is still relatively unknown in her own country." That same year, she made her Carnegie Hall debut with the New York Philharmonic under the baton of Dmitri Mitropoulos. The New York Times called her a "mature artist with imagination and sensitivity."
She herself often told the stories of her life in Europe with a touch of mischievousness in her countenance, as she enjoyed jumping the hurdle her audiences put her through. Dressed in elaborate and elegant American gowns, West commanded the stage. "I never felt inferior to the Germans," West said with a smile. "I knew I was superior to everyone anyway."
After retiring from public performances, she taught singing in Germany until 2008. Then she moved back to the United States to care for her ailing sister. Even after that, she kept in touch with her German friends and former students.