Matilda Sissieretta Joyner Jones, known as Sissieretta Jones, (January
, or â€" June , ) was an American soprano. She sometimes was called
"The Black Patti" in reference to Italian opera singer Adelina Patti.
Jones' repertoire included grand opera, light opera, and popular
music. Trained at the Providence Academy of Music and the New England
Conservatory of Music, Jones made her New York debut in at Steinway
Hall, and four years later she performed at the White House for
President Benjamin Harrison. She eventually sang for four consecutive
presidents and the British royal family, and met with international
success. Besides the United States and the West Indies, Jones toured
in South America, Australia, India, southern Africa, and Europe.The
highest-paid African-American performer of her time, later in her
career she founded the Black Patti Troubadours (later renamed the
Black Patti Musical Comedy Company), a musical and acrobatic act made
up of jugglers, comedians, dancers and a chorus of trained singers.
She remained the star of the Famous Troubadours for around two decades
while they established their popularity in the principal cities of the
United States and Canada, Jones retired from performing in . In she
was inducted into the Rhode Island Music Hall of Fame.Matilda
Sissieretta Joyner was born on January , , in a house on Bart Street
in Portsmouth, Virginia, United States, to Jeremiah Malachi Joyner, an
African Methodist Episcopal minister and Henrietta Beale, a singer in
a church choir and washerwoman. Her father had formerly been enslaved,
but was educated and literate. She was the oldest of three children,
although her siblings died when they were young. Matilda Joyner was
nicknamed as Sissy or Tilly by her family and friends, and began
singing around the house at a young age. When she was six years old,
her family moved to Providence, Rhode Island, where she began singing
at an early age in her father's Pond Street Baptist Church. She
attended Meeting Street and Thayer Schools. In , Joyner began the
formal study of music at the Providence Academy of Music. She studied
with Ada Baroness Lacombe. In the late s, Jones was accepted at the
New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, studying under Flora
Batson of the Bergen Star Company. She also studied at the Boston
Conservatory.
, or â€" June , ) was an American soprano. She sometimes was called
"The Black Patti" in reference to Italian opera singer Adelina Patti.
Jones' repertoire included grand opera, light opera, and popular
music. Trained at the Providence Academy of Music and the New England
Conservatory of Music, Jones made her New York debut in at Steinway
Hall, and four years later she performed at the White House for
President Benjamin Harrison. She eventually sang for four consecutive
presidents and the British royal family, and met with international
success. Besides the United States and the West Indies, Jones toured
in South America, Australia, India, southern Africa, and Europe.The
highest-paid African-American performer of her time, later in her
career she founded the Black Patti Troubadours (later renamed the
Black Patti Musical Comedy Company), a musical and acrobatic act made
up of jugglers, comedians, dancers and a chorus of trained singers.
She remained the star of the Famous Troubadours for around two decades
while they established their popularity in the principal cities of the
United States and Canada, Jones retired from performing in . In she
was inducted into the Rhode Island Music Hall of Fame.Matilda
Sissieretta Joyner was born on January , , in a house on Bart Street
in Portsmouth, Virginia, United States, to Jeremiah Malachi Joyner, an
African Methodist Episcopal minister and Henrietta Beale, a singer in
a church choir and washerwoman. Her father had formerly been enslaved,
but was educated and literate. She was the oldest of three children,
although her siblings died when they were young. Matilda Joyner was
nicknamed as Sissy or Tilly by her family and friends, and began
singing around the house at a young age. When she was six years old,
her family moved to Providence, Rhode Island, where she began singing
at an early age in her father's Pond Street Baptist Church. She
attended Meeting Street and Thayer Schools. In , Joyner began the
formal study of music at the Providence Academy of Music. She studied
with Ada Baroness Lacombe. In the late s, Jones was accepted at the
New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, studying under Flora
Batson of the Bergen Star Company. She also studied at the Boston
Conservatory.
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