Amy Evans

The usual description of her father, Thomas Vaughan Evans,[1] as a coal miner, although not altogether inaccurate, somewhat understates his standing; he was an official in the Naval Colliery Company.

In 1896, she began vocal studies with David Lloyd, organist and choirmaster of St. Andrew's Church in Tonypandy and a recognised pianist in South Wales.

[2] In 1899, at age 14, Evans won the soprano prize at the Welsh National Eisteddfod in Cardiff, Wales for a performance of "Hear ye, Israel" from Mendelssohn's Elijah.

[1] Presenting her with the award was the celebrated Welsh tenor Ben Davies, who described her as "a great natural singer" and foretold a stellar future for her, assuming "proper training".

[4] This early Savoyard association would prove prophetic: on 3 January 1910, Evans replaced Nancy McIntosh in the leading role of Selene in W. S. Gilbert's unsuccessful last opera, Fallen Fairies, with music by Edward German,[5] which Charles Workman's company had premiered on 15 December 1909 at the Savoy Theatre in London.

[9] Thereafter, she returned to her concert career, although she had brief associations with Covent Garden and the Philadelphia-Chicago Grand Opera Company in the years leading up to World War I.

[10] For example, she was Micaela in Carmen at Covent Garden in 1912,[11] and in Chicago she joined Rosa Raisa, then at the outset of her career, as one of the flower maidens in Parsifal during the 1913–1914 season.

"[10] Evans and Gange continued performing together after moving to the United States in 1923 and enjoyed success in major concert venues, such as Town Hall in New York City.

On 27 March 1932, Evans sang in Bach's Mass in B minor with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Serge Koussevitzky, together with Gange, Margarete Matzenauer and Richard Crooks.

The rest were duets with baritone Francis Ludlow: The second year of that association with Pathé included her participation as Elsie Maynard and Kate in the first nearly complete recording of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Yeomen of the Guard.

Substituting for the orchestra was the Band of the Scots Guards,[17] reflecting common practise among recording companies, as technology of the day captured wind instruments far better than strings.

In all her earlier recordings aside from the Yeomen set, her accompaniments, as was common practice at the time, would have been by anonymous studio musicians, but information on the labels may suggest the identity of her piano accompanist in the test pressings.