Astra Desmond

Astra Desmond CBE (10 April 1893 – 16 August 1973) was a British contralto of the early and middle twentieth century.

Prior to Desmond's birth the family had lived in Australia, her two older siblings Mabel and Claude being born in Melbourne.

During Desmond's childhood the family moved first to Upper Norwood and then to West Kensington, both in what is now the Greater London Area.

[1] She studied singing with Blanche Marchesi (as did her colleague Muriel Brunskill) and Louise Trenton, and in Berlin with Ernst Grezebach and Coenraad V.

[1] On 5 October 1938 Desmond was one of the original 16 singers in Ralph Vaughan Williams's Serenade to Music, the recording of which, made at EMI's Abbey Road studio shortly thereafter, has been transferred to compact disc by several companies.

[7][8]) As well as the regular standard concert works including Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius (in which she frequently sang under the baton of the composer)[9] and Handel's Messiah, Desmond sang a wide repertoire, taking part in the first broadcast performance of Stravinsky's Oedipus rex in 1928[1] and a rare performance of Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde, with Peter Pears, the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Sir Adrian Boult in 1942,[10] and she was the first to introduce the songs of Yrjö Kilpinen to British audiences.