Marie Kunkel Zimmerman
[1] She began her acting career as a child opposite her father; the theatre manager, blackface minstrel show entertainer, actor, and singer-songwriter George Kunkel.
She co-authored the suffragist anthem "Votes for Women: Suffrage Rallying Song" with her husband, composer and concert singer Edward M.
[11] George Kunkel Sr. was a famous blackface performer of the 19th century and was closely associated with the role of Uncle Tom.
[32] It became a professional group which toured widely in the United States over the next several decades, with new members replacing original singers periodically.
[40][44][45] She began appearing in chamber music concerts in the city in 1889 with musicians like pianist Maurits Leefson (1861–1926), violinist and composer Gustav Hille (1850 – ca.1925), and cellist Rudolph Hennig (1845–1904).
[51][52] In February 1891 she performed in concert with the violinist Arthur Hartmann, then a child prodigy of 9 years of age, at St. George's Hall.
[61][62] In February 1896 the Zimmermans were soloists in Louis Spohr's God, Thou Art Great: Opus 98: a Sacred Cantata for Four Voices which was performed at the Drexel Institute (now Drexel University) in a memorial concert for the Philadelphia concert pianist and music teacher Charles H. Jarvis (1837–1895).
[63] The following April they were the soprano and bass soloists in Joseph Haydn's The Creation at Philadelphia's Association Hall;[64] a work they repeated at that same theatre in May 1898.
[65] In October 1898 the couple were part of the soloist quartet in the Philadelphia premiere of Liza Lehmann's song-cycle In a Persian garden at Witherspoon Hall.
[68] In April 1893 Kunkel Zimmerman sang the role of the Widow in Mendelssohn's Elijah with the Germantown choral society.
[72][73] In February 1895 Kunkel Zimmerman returned to Musical Fund Hall to perform in a concert with baritone Kirk Towns that was conducted by W. H.
With that choir she was the soprano soloist in Beethoven's Choral Fantasy, and later in the program she performed arias from The Marriage of Figaro and lieder by Robert Schumann.
[79] In 1901 she was the soprano soloist in Felix Mendelssohn's Elijah at The May Festival of the University of Michigan under conductor Albert Augustus Stanley (1851–1932).
Her collaborators in this latter concert included bass Herbert Witherspoon, tenor Clarence B. Shirley, contralto Helen Allen Hunt, and conductor Franz Kneisel.
[83] She also performed Anton Bruckner's Te Deum with the BSO in 1905,[84] and that same year gave a concert sponsored by Bishop Henry Y. Satterlee of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington at the Lafayette Square Opera House in Washington, D.C.[85] In February 1905 she was the soprano soloist in Giuseppe Verdi's Requiem with the New Haven Oratorio Society under the direction of Horatio Parker.
Her fellow soloists included contralto Gertrude May Stein, tenor Edward Johnson, and bass Frank Croxton.
[86] In July 1907 Kunkel Zimmerman was the soprano soloist in Arthur Sullivan's The Golden Legend with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO).
[88] She spent several months touring North America with conductor Alexander von Fielitz and the CSO in 1907, performing in both large and small cities, including Toronto,[89] Phoenix, Arizona,[90] San Francisco,[89] Dubuque, Iowa,[91] San Antonio,[89] Ypsilanti, Michigan,[89] and Kokomo, Indiana.
[95] In 1915 Kunkel Zimmerman served on a committee of examiners for the Philadelphia Orchestra responsible for auditioning and selecting choral vocalists for the United States premiere of Gustav Mahler's Symphony No.
