Carol Brice

She attracted considerable attention for her role in a 1939 production of The Hot Mikado at the New York World's Fair, where she worked with Bill "Bojangles" Robinson.

[1] Brice made her recital debut in 1943, that year becoming the first African-American to win the Walter Naumburg Award.

[2] She was the featured contralto on the February 5, 1946 recording of Manuel de Falla's El Amor Brujo conducted by Fritz Reiner with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra.

Her opera performances included roles in Clarence Cameron White's Ouanga and Marc Blitzstein's Regina.

[3] She later founded the non-profit Cimarron Circuit Opera Company in Oklahoma with her husband, the baritone Thomas Carey.