UNCG conferred an honorary degree on music educator and renowned opera mezzo-soprano Elvira Green, at the Dec. 11 Doctoral Hooding ceremony in UNCG Auditorium.
Born into a family of musicians, Elvira Green grew up on a family farm in eastern North Carolina and began playing the piano at the age of 4. Her lifelong passion for music was ignited as she and her family listened to live radio broadcasts from New York City’s Metropolitan Opera.
“I must have been 6 years old when I first started listening to all those beautiful voices, and that’s when I began to think, ‘I got this,’” she says.
She graduated with a degree in piano performance and a minor in French from North Carolina Central University in 1962.
She moved to New York to study voice with soprano and mentor Afrika Hayes and made her Metropolitan Opera debut in 1966, proving true her childhood premonition. By the 1970s, she was one of three African American women to earn a principal artist position at the Met, where she performed for nearly two decades.
Starting with that stage, she spent over 40 years performing in the world’s premier operatic, concert, and musical theater venues. Her stunning voice reached audiences across the United States, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia. Her role as Maria in the Met’s international tours of “Porgy and Bess” became a signature role. She performed it more than 800 times, including her notable work with the Greensboro Opera.
In 1995, she returned to Greensboro to be close to family and immediately immersed herself in the Triad’s musical scene. She joined the Greensboro Opera Board and served as president of the North Carolina Carl Brice Music Association.
She created and directed the Singers Studio, a summer opera program for pre-teens and young teens whose graduates have become ministers, doctors, actors, and acclaimed performers.
As a scholar and educator, from 2000 to 2017, she designed a vocal studies program at the University of the Virgin Islands in St. Thomas. She served as a faculty member and artist in residence at her alma mater, North Carolina Central University, from 2005 to 2017.
In presenting the honor to Green, Chancellor Franklin D. Gilliam Jr, said, “The breadth of her achievements is remarkable. Her passion for the transformative power of music and mentorship has shaped the lives of countless young artists throughout North Carolina and the world, including students and alumni of this University.”
By Jo Carol Torrez