Neil McCauley
30-09-2016, 10:08
The story of Kathleen Ferrier’s life and untimely death at only 41 is well-known. Her extraordinary voice is regularly heard on the radio and on recordings that still sell in their thousands. There are awards, bursaries and a competition bearing her name. I got to know her music while I was a student at music college, and eager to know more, I turned to a book of her Letters and Diaries. As soon as I read the first letter, I knew that an audience should meet this remarkable woman – one of our greatest ever contraltos – and hear her story, in her own words.
Unconventionally for the 1940s, Kathleen came to professional singing relatively late. Married at 23, she divorced her husband, a bank manager in Silloth, Cumbria, and moved to London in the middle of the second world war, unsure if she would be able to pay the rent. But she .....
Continues at https://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2016/sep/29/kathleen-ferrier-in-her-own-words-lucy-stevens
Unconventionally for the 1940s, Kathleen came to professional singing relatively late. Married at 23, she divorced her husband, a bank manager in Silloth, Cumbria, and moved to London in the middle of the second world war, unsure if she would be able to pay the rent. But she .....
Continues at https://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2016/sep/29/kathleen-ferrier-in-her-own-words-lucy-stevens