Nathalie Stutzmann
In 2023 Nathalie Stutzmann made history by becoming the first woman to direct the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and the second woman to lead a major American orchestra, after MacArthur Fellow Marin Alsop.
Category Archives: Music
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Francine Reed
Francine Reed, Atlanta’s “queen of the blues,” was born in Illinois in 1947. In the 1990s she relocated to Georgia and soon became one of Atlanta’s most beloved performers.
Reed’s career was cemented on the foundation of a musically rich family. Her father was a gospel singer and her sister Margo Reed became a noted jazz singer. As the youngest of six siblings, Reed began performing
Kitty Clive
Irish comic actress, singer, and writer
Gladys Knight
As one of Motown’s leading ladies of soul in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Gladys Knight was the driving force behind Gladys Knight and the Pips, an all-family music group from Atlanta.
Willie Mae Ford Smith
African-American gospel singer and evangelist
Lila Pauline Robeson
International opera star and the first Cleveland-born artist to sing with the Metropolitan Opera (1912-1922) in New York.
Lillian Luverne Baldwin
Supervisor of music appreciation at Cleveland Public Schools for more than two decades
Josephine Forsyth
Cleveland singer, composer, and musical patron.
Minnie Gentry
“The First Lady” of Karamu Theater, this critically acclaimed artist received a Tony nomination in 1972 and the Outstanding Pioneer Award for her contributions to Black theater in 1985.
Vitya Vronsky Babin
Distinguished pianist and teacher long associated with the Cleveland Institute of Music