Encouraged and informally mentored by Roland Hayes, Marian Anderson ultimately became recognized as one of the finest interpreters of the art song spiritual. Born and raised in Philadelphia, Anderson’s family and surrounding community recognized and supported her talents beginning early in her childhood.

Like Hayes, Anderson eventually ended up traveling to Europe to escape the problems of racial discrimination in the U.S., and like Hayes, her European success gave her the substantial boost she needed to establish herself as a first-rate concert artist in the U.S. Also like Hayes, Anderson embraced the proud heritage associated with spirituals, and included art song arrangements of spirituals in concerts throughout her career, believing strongly that these songs deserved a rightful place, alongside performances of German lieder and other European art songs, in every serious recital program. She also made it a point to sing spirituals in dialect, honoring the legacy of the enslaved women and men who created and first sang these songs. She became known, among other things, for the strong emotional feeling that she infused into every performance of a spiritual.

Anderson is recognized as one of the greatest concert artists of the twentieth century. As a preview of the many subsequent rave reviews she would receive, the noted conductor Arturo Toscanini said of Anderson following one of her performances in Salzburg, Austria in 1935 that “a voice like hers is heard only once in a hundred years.” Still, Anderson had to overcome the burden of ongoing racial discrimination, particularly in the early part of her career.

In 1939 Anderson was engaged to perform an Easter Sunday concert at Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C. When the managers of the Hall – The Daughters of the American Revolution (D.A.R.) – learned that a Black singer had been contracted, they cancelled the concert. Ironically, it was this action that ended up as the catalyst for Anderson’s rise to national prominence as an artist. Not only did First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, then a member of D.A.R., resign in protest of D.A.R.’s action, but U.S. Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes arranged for Anderson to perform a free outdoor concert at the base of the Lincoln Memorial (the site where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would later deliver his famous “I Have a Dream” speech as part of the historic 1963 March on Washington). In response to Ickes’ public invitation, 75,000 people came to hear Marian Anderson sing. She became an instant national symbol of human freedom and dignity. Anderson included three spirituals in her 1939 Lincoln Memorial concert: “Gospel Train,” “Trampin’”, and “My Soul Is Anchored in the Lord.”

In 1955, Marian Anderson became the first Black singer to perform a principal role at the Metropolitan Opera. This was one of dozens of achievements for a truly great artist. However, regardless other things occurring her professional and personal life, Anderson continued to reserve a cherished place for spirituals in her diverse concert repertoire, and included spirituals in virtually every recital program throughout her long performing career.