Georgina Ann Stirling was the satisfaction of Twillingate, Newfoundland. The soprano carried out in opera homes throughout Europe and the USA, changing into the province’s first worldwide opera singer.
Her nickname was The Nightingale of the North.
That’s additionally the title of a tune newly recorded by soprano Tonia Evans Cianciulli, a pop/classical crossover that celebrates Stirling’s life and profession.
Singer, songwriter, soprano and writer Tonia Evans Cianciulli is a local of St. John’s, Newfoundland. She has carried out throughout North America in genres that vary from opera to her personal songs, and sometimes covers the work of Ron Hynes in celebration of Newfoundland heritage.
It’s not Tonia’s first exploration of Stirling and her legacy. Evans Cianciulli, together with her grandfather Calvin D. Evans, co-authored a ebook titled The Coronary heart’s Obsession – An Intimate Biography of Newfoundland Songstress Georgina Stirling that was revealed by Flanker Press Ltd in 2022. The foreword was written by the late Maestro Kerry Stratton.
It was the reference to Hynes’ music that first drew Evans Cianciulli to Georgina. Tonia recorded his tune Marie, devoted to Stirling; a tune written by one Newfoundland legend, singer-songwriter Ron Hynes (1950 – 2015) about one other.
Georgina Ann Stirling
Georgina Ann Stirling was born April 3, 1867 in Twillingate, Newfoundland, and died in her hometown on April 21, 1935.
Georgina’s entry into music got here through the organ, and he or she started learning the instrument at St. Peter’s Anglican Church in Twillingate at an early age. She practiced for about 4 hours a day, and started performing as a younger teenager.
She was the youngest of seven sisters, and after her mom died when Georgina was simply 15, she was despatched to Toronto to stay with one in every of her older sisters. She attended a boarding and day faculty, and inside just a few months, she was additionally learning piano and organ with Carl Martens, who had studied on the Royal Conservatory of Music in Leipzig, Germany.
Georgina additionally started to check voice, impressed by listening to Swedish soprano Christina Nilsson in efficiency. After two years of examine, she returned to Twillingate, and the fantastic thing about her voice struck the British governor of the colony, Henry Arthur Blake, who occurred to listen to her sing. Blake, and others, inspired her household to ship her to Italy to coach as an opera singer.
She would spend two years learning in Florence, the place she gave many performances, and made her operatic debut in 1890. Her profession was launched in Europe, and he or she went to London in 1891, then to Paris, the place she continued her research.
Georgina made her Paris debut in 1893 and selected the stage identify Marie Toulinguet, which was the unique French identify for Twillingate. Her profession took her all through Europe and to the US, the place she carried out with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and lots of different outstanding ensembles.
Private and medical issues together with her vocal chords would sideline her profession for just a few years, however she made a comeback in 1901.
Georgina returned to Twillingate in 1928, and sang for the native church and at group concert events, coached different singers, and saved energetic till her dying in 1935.
The memorial stone created in her honour in Twillingate is carved with the inscription “entertained royalty by the sweetness of her voice, and the poor by the kindness of her coronary heart.”
Nightingale of the North
Tonia Evans Cianciulli relies in Toronto lately, however she returns to Newfoundland for a collection of performances in St. John’s and Twillingate between August 1 and 10.
She wrote Nightingale of the North through the pandemic, influenced by the expertise of co-authoring The Coronary heart’s Obsession together with her father, a historian. “I dreamed of her taking my hand,” she relates in a press release. “That dream felt like a passing of the torch. I’ve been holding it shut ever since.”
MusicNL Award-winner Rozalind MacPhail performs alto flute on the observe, with Jesse Fegelma on guitar.
Tonia holds a Bachelor of Voice Efficiency from the College of Western Ontario. She’s launched a number of albums of her personal music, and has carried out throughout North America.
She’ll be showing and performing in a collection of occasions August 9 and 10 in Twillingate, together with the general public reveal of artist Sylvia Ficken’s previously long-lost watercolour portraits of Georgina.
- August 9 – 11:00 a.m. – Twillingate Museum – Guide Signing
- August 9 – 4:00 p.m. – St. Peter’s Church – one hundred and eightieth Anniversary Celebration with Hymns, Opera, and Beloved Music
- August 10 – 11:00 a.m. – St. Peter’s Cemetery – Flower Ceremony Honouring Georgina Stirling
- August 10 – 5:00 p.m. – Blue Barrel Gallery – Folks Favourites and Extra, with particular visitor Adam Baxter on guitar
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Anya Wassenberg is the Toronto Metropolis Editor at Ludwig Van. Beforehand, she was a contract author with a specialty in tradition and journey for 3 many years, and a artistic writing teacher for Ontariolearn.
