George Shirley, Hilda Harris, Martha Flowers, Leona Mitchell

This article reports on a conversation between George Shirley, Emeritus Professor of Music at the University of Michigan and former Metropolitan Opera singer, and three legendary Southern-born African-American singers who have since retired from the operatic circuit (well, Leona Mitchell still sings here and there) but achieved interesting careers when they were active. These are Hilda Harris, Martha Flowers, and Leona Mitchell. This conversation happened on March 24, 2012 at the Videmus Festival of African-American Classical Music in Chapel Hill, NC, co-organized by our partners UNC College of Arts and Sciences - Department of Music, under Professor Louise Toppin. The event was attended by Opera Lively’s journalist Almaviva. While these are not exclusive, we placed this article under our Exclusive Interviews are for pragmatic reasons, since the article does read just like real interviews. [Opera Lively interviews #86, 87, 88, and 89]
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