page_title: Portia White
section_title: Singing career and later life
hierarchical_section_title: Portia White / Singing career and later life
caption_attribution_description: Photograph of Interior of the auditorium on the seventh floor of Eaton’s College St. store
context_page_description: Portia May White was a Canadian contralto, known for becoming the first Black Canadian concert singer to achieve international fame. Growing up as part of her father's church choir in Halifax, Nova Scotia, White competed in local singing competitions as a teenager and later trained at the Halifax Conservatory of Music. In 1941 and 1944, she made her national and international debuts as a singer, receiving critical acclaim for her performances of both classical European music and African-American spirituals. White later completed tours throughout Europe, the Caribbean, and Central and South America.
  When vocal difficulties and cancer eventually contributed to her retirement in 1952, White settled in Toronto and subsequently taught young Canadian musicians such as Lorne Greene, Dinah Christie, Don Francks, Robert Goulet and Anne Marie Moss. One of White's final major public appearances was a special command performance for Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip in 1964.
  White was declared a person of national historic significance by the Government of Canada.
context_section_description: In November 1941, with the support of Read, 30-year-old White made her national debut as a singer in Toronto at the Eaton Auditorium. She was favourably received by audiences, even receiving a career management offer from Oxford University Press the day after her performance. Despite encountering racism as she sought out new performance bookings, White subsequently toured across Canada, performing concerts at venues that included the Governor General's Rideau Hall residence.
  White sang both classical European music and African-American spirituals, and works by Harry T. Burleigh were a constant part of her concert repertoire. Alongside English pieces, she performed music in Italian, German, French and Spanish, and White's three-octave range attracted critical acclaim. Hector Charlesworth's review in The Globe and Mail observed White's "pungent expression and beauty of utterance," while a critic with the Toronto Evening Telegram said she had a "coloured and beautifully shaded contralto ... It is a natural voice, a gift from heaven." White was compared to noted American contralto Marian Anderson.
  After auditioning for Metropolitan Opera general manager Edward Johnson, White made her international debut in New York City in 1944, becoming the first Canadian to perform at New York's Town Hall performance space. The New York Times reported her performance as "remarkable," and Paul Bowles of the New York Herald Tribune wrote that "White, contralto, showed the public ... that she not only has a magnificent vocal instrument, but that she also has sufficient musicianship and intelligence to do what she wishes with it."
  White went on to sing at many more concerts across the United States. The province of Nova Scotia and the city of Halifax provided new financial support for the rising star, purchasing a white fox cape for White to wear at performances. In 1945, she signed a contract with artist agency Columbia Concerts Incorporated. A three-month tour of Central and South America and the Caribbean followed in 1946, and she sang in France and Switzerland in 1948. White was the first Black Canadian concert singer to achieve international fame.
  Vocal problems, an exhausting itinerary, and an eventual diagnosis of breast cancer later contributed to White's early retirement from public singing in 1952, and she settled in Toronto, where she studied with sopranos Gina Cigna and Irene Jessner at the Royal Conservatory of Music. As a vocal instructor herself, White also went on to teach some of Canada's up-and-coming musical talent, and her students included singers Lorne Greene, Dinah Christie, Don Francks, Robert Goulet, Anne Marie Moss and Judith Lander. White appeared in Halifax for a few rare performances during the 50s; although she announced her intention to resume a full-time singing career, her return to the concert circuit never fully materialized. In 1964, she sang in a command performance for Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, at the opening of the Confederation Centre of the Arts in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. This was one of her last major concerts.
  White died in Toronto on February 13, 1968, aged 56.
caption: The Eaton Auditorium, c. 1945
exif: {}