CINCINNATI — George Shirley's week of performances across Cincinnati will add another first to a long list in his career. He'll be the first artist to perform with the four major classic music groups - Chamber Music Cincinnati, Cincinnati Opera, Cincinnati Symphony, and the College Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati.
The 88-year-old kicked off his week in the city singing at three major Black churches on Easter Sunday: Corinthian Baptist Church in Bond Hill, New Jerusalem Baptist Church in Carthage, and New Prospect Baptist Church in Roselawn.
"It's something that I feel, at this point in my life, necessary to do," he said. "To have these kinds of discussions about life, in America in particular, about the place that the arts have in humanizing others, humanizing people, bringing people together."
Shirley grew up in Detroit, went to college to teach music, and landed a job as the first Black high school music teacher in Detroit before the country drafted him into service in the Army. There, he became the first Black singer in the U.S. Army Chorus. A colleague encouraged him to try a career in opera when he got out of the Army.
"I was able to do it because I was trained to do it by teachers who didn't have [a racial] block in their mindset," he said.
Shirley's career firsts would continue. He was the first Black singer to win the national Metropolitan Opera Auditions and became the first Black tenor to have a contract with the Metropolitan Opera, where he sang for more than a decade.
"I'm sure there were a whole lot of folks who were not happy to see me on stage at the Met Opera singing love duets with white sopranos and singing La Boheme and operas like that," he said. "'What is he doing there? He's Black, how can he sing La Boheme in Italian? Does he speak Italian?' It doesn't matter that tenors of English descent were singing it."
He won a Grammy singing the role of Fernando on the 1968 RCA recording of Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutte. President Barack Obama awarded him the National Medal of the Arts in 2015.
"When I'm on stage doing a role that's - say - seen as a White role, I know that people out there aren't comfortable with it knowing that I'm Black, but I can't deal with that," he said. "That's their problem not mine."
With a stories career and one featuring a number of firsts, Shirley has become a student of Black music and its influence on the American songbook. He's also experienced how racism can determine careers, casting, and perception.
"One headline said 'Il Rodolfo Nero ha superato l'esame' - 'the Black Rodolfo has passed the exam,' he said. "Well I wasn't on stage thinking it was an exam. I was on stage playing the role of Rodolfo."
As part of his week being celebrated across Cincinnati, Shirley performed and did two presentations with author and historian Joseph Horowitz. Horowitz wrote the book Dvorak's Prophecy: And the Vexed Fate of Black Classical Music.
"Dvorak is a key figure, as is his assistant Harry Burleigh, who is responsible for turning spirituals into concert songs," Horowitz said. "Dvorak made a prophecy and it was, what he called the Negro melodies of America, would foster a great and noble school of American classical music. But it didn't come true in classical music, it came true in popular music."
Horowitz said he believes American composers of that time wasted an opportunity Dvorak saw. He's been critical in helping uncover that history, spurred to action by the murder of George Floyd by a police officer in 2020.
The pair presented history, reflections, and some performances at CCM Monday and Tuesday evenings before Shirley performs the spirituals "Deep River" and "Oh, Freedom" with the CSO at its annual Classical Roots concert on Friday. Shirley also led coaching sessions at CCM and some Cincinnati Public Schools.
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