Jessye Norman
Jessye Norman
Jessye Mae Normanis an American Grammy award-winning opera singer and recitalist. A dramatic soprano, Norman is associated in particular with the Wagnerian repertoire, and with the roles of Sieglinde, Ariadne, Alceste, and Leonore. Norman has been inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame and is a Spingarn Medalist. Apart from receiving several honorary doctorates and other awards, she has also received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, the National Medal of Arts, and is a member of the British Royal...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionOpera Singer
Date of Birth15 September 1945
CityAugusta, GA
CountryUnited States of America
I love singing jazz. I don't like the idea that classical music should be over here and jazz should be someplace else. It's all wonderful, and we should be open to enjoying it all.
I knew that I was loved. And that's such an important thing. And, of course, at such an early age, you take it for granted. Of course your parents love you. Of course Mrs. Hubert across the street loves you and your godmother loves you and your grandparents love you.
If I were not able to separate the art from the artists, I think I would limit myself a great deal, and life wouldn't be nearly as interesting.
I read everything. I'll read a John Grisham novel, I'll sit and read a whole book of poems by Maya Angelou, or I'll just read some Mary Oliver - this is a book that was given to me for Christmas. No particular genre. And I read in French, and I read in German, and I read in English. I love to see how other people use language.
I'm a sloucher, sort of, when nobody's looking.
I didn't think at all as a young child that music would be my profession. It was just something that one did along with going to Brownies or going to church or going to school or anything else that one did in sort of one's very young life.
I am not one to equate dress size and artistic performance.
I feel comfortable singing in the great cathedrals of the world because I spent so much time as a child singing in church. And it isn't very different. Of course, nothing looks quite like Notre Dame de Paris.
I walk an 11-minute mile without huffing and puffing.
I want to keep learning, keep exploring, keep doing more.
I want to sing more in Spanish. I want to sing the songs of Granados; the songs of Montsalvatge. To do things that truly I've not done before.
It is still more likely that a woman's power would be seen as aggression, and a man's power would be seen as assertion.
One needs more than ambition and talent to make a success of anything, really. There must be love and a vocation.
I have a particular affliction. I am unable to say a word I can't spell.