Black Swans: at Mid-Century

Parnassus Records is pleased to release a follow-up to their acclaimed “Black Swans” anthology, which returned to international availability extraordinarily rare early recordings of African-American opera singers. The new release, “Black Swans at Mid-Century”, contains over two hours of music and focuses on Black artists of the mid-twentieth century. Selections span the late 78 era to the dawn of stereo and cover a wide range of repertoire – opera, oratorios, musical theater, lieder, nostalgic songs, and spirituals. Previously unpublished recordings by Marian Anderson, Mattiwilda Dobbs, Robert McFerrin Senior (Father of the renowned singer, Bobby McFerrin Jr.), and Carol Brice are included along with rare commercial recordings and broadcast transcriptions made by Adele Addison, Jules Bledsoe, Anne Brown, Betty Allen, Thomas Carey, Ellabelle Davis, Gloria Davy, Todd Duncan, Ruby Elzy, Charles Holland, Inez Matthews, Margaret Tynes, William Warfield, and Camilla Williams.