ACCOLADES KU RT-AL EXAN DER ZEL L ER, I N TE R N ATI O N A L P R E S I DE N T, M U C H I , AT L A N TA A LU M NI P R E S I D E N T@ MU P H I E P S I LO N .O R G
‘LIFT EVERY VOICE AND SING’ National Opera Association recognizes Barbara Hill Moore Barbara Hill Moore performed as Bess in “Porgy and Bess” at Milwaukee’s Florentine Opera in 1989 opposite Donnie Ray Albert as Porgy.
he National Opera Association (NOA) capped its 67th National Conference held in January by honoring Mu Phi Epsilon ACME member Barbara Hill Moore (Mu Chi) with its “Lift Every Voice” Legacy Award. The award, instituted in 1995, recognizes the extraordinary contributions of African American artists to the world of opera and classical singing. Past recipients have included singers Grace Bumbry, Simon Estes, Reri Grist, Jessye Norman, George Shirley and Shirley Verrett; composers H. Leslie Adams, Anthony Davis and Robert Owens; conductor Willie Anthony Waters; costume designer Paul Tazewell; and musicologist Eileen Southern, among many other luminaries. In presenting its award to Hill Moore, the NOA cited her “illustrious career as an artist/teacher for more than five decades,” during which she has graced opera stages and concert platforms on both sides of the Atlantic while she was at the same time training and mentoring several generations of singers and teachers of singing. Unlike many singers, who often begin to teach only as their performance careers start to wind down, soprano Hill Moore 4
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always prioritized what she calls “her first love,” teaching, while also continually practicing what she preached and maintaining an active calendar of performances at the highest level. That this strategy has served to inspire and motivate her students I can affirm from experience — Mrs. Hill Moore was my voice professor when I was an undergraduate double major in music and theatre at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, where she has taught since 1974 and is now senior associate dean for faculty and Meadows Foundation Distinguished Professor of Voice at SMU Meadows School of the Arts. She was also the faculty advisor of the Mu Chi chapter of Mu Phi Epsilon in those days, and clearly there was another kind of inspiration at work on me there! Virtually every semester, she didn’t just tell her voice students about how to be a skilled soloist in oratorio and orchestra literature, how to portray an opera character, how to learn and champion new music or how a superlative recitalist can draw lines that encompass Bach, Brahms, Burleigh, Britten and Brubeck and won’t leave anyone out — instead, she showed us
