Portia White sang Town Hall in 1944, the first Canadian

Portia White, a contralto from Truro, N.S., performed at New York’s Town Hall on March 13, 1944, becoming the first Canadian to sing there, according to The Canadian Encyclopedia.

The recital was widely acclaimed. It came after what Women and Gender Equality Canada describes as “many failed attempts based on her race and gender” to book such a hall.

White was born June 24, 1911, in Truro, the third of 13 children, the encyclopedia said. Her father, the Rev. William A. White, was the son of people who had been enslaved in Virginia. Her mother, Izie Dora White, was descended from Black Loyalists in Nova Scotia. The family later moved to Halifax, where her father became pastor of Cornwallis Street Baptist Church, the encyclopedia said.

She began singing in a church choir at age six. The encyclopedia reports she sang soprano parts from Donizetti’s opera Lucia di Lammermoor at eight and walked 16 kilometres a week for music lessons. The Black Baptist church was the institution that shaped her first audiences, part of the tradition traced in the 1854 formation of a 12-church association of Black Baptists in the province.

White started teacher training at Dalhousie University in 1929, the encyclopedia said. After graduating, she taught in Black Nova Scotian communities, including Africville and Lucasville. Africville, the Halifax community whose end is recounted in our report on its demolition and the city’s apology, was one of the places where she taught while she trained at the Halifax Conservatory of Music.

The Canadian Encyclopedia said she took lessons in the 1930s as a mezzo-soprano with Bertha Cruikshanks and sang on devotional radio broadcasts hosted by her father. She won the Helen Kennedy Silver Cup at the Halifax Music Festival in 1935, 1937 and 1938.

In 1939, the Halifax Ladies’ Musical Club provided a scholarship for her to study with Ernesto Vinci at the conservatory, according to the encyclopedia. Under Vinci, it said, she began to sing as a contralto. Women and Gender Equality Canada also dates the scholarship to 1939 and identifies Vinci as a noted Italian baritone.

She made her formal debut at age 30 at Toronto’s Eaton Auditorium on Nov. 7, 1941, the encyclopedia said. Toronto critics were generous. Hector Charlesworth of the Globe and Mail wrote that she sang “with pungent expression and beauty of utterance,” while Edward Wodson of the Evening Telegram called hers a “natural voice, a gift from heaven,” the encyclopedia reported. It said she resigned her teaching position that year.

The New York recital followed in March 1944, and two more Town Hall concerts came in 1944 and 1945, the encyclopedia said. In 1944, the Nova Scotia Talent Trust was established, which the encyclopedia says was created specifically so White could concentrate on her professional career. Both the encyclopedia and the federal government say she signed with Columbia Concerts Inc. in 1945. Women and Gender Equality Canada describes it as the largest artist agency in North America.

Her career was not a straight climb. The encyclopedia said she had vocal difficulties and management problems after a 1946 tour of Central and South America, and toured the Maritimes and sang in Switzerland and France in 1948. The two sources differ on when and why she stepped back. The encyclopedia says she soon retired from public performance after 1948, moved to Toronto in 1952 to study at the Royal Conservatory of Music, and sporadically resumed singing in the mid-1950s. Women and Gender Equality Canada says poor health forced her to retire in 1952. This report does not attempt to settle that difference.

She sang before Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip at the Confederation Centre of the Arts in Charlottetown on Oct. 6, 1964, the encyclopedia said. Her final public performance was in July 1967 at the World Baptist Federation in Ottawa. After 1952, she taught voice in Toronto, including at Branksome Hall. She died in Toronto on Feb. 13, 1968, at age 56.

She made no studio recordings, the encyclopedia said. What survives includes concert audio of her 1944 and 1945 performances held by Library and Archives Canada, and a posthumous concert recording, Think on Me.

Her recognition has grown since. The Government of Canada designated her a person of national historic significance in 1995, Canada Post issued a stamp in 1999, and a life-sized sculpture was unveiled in 2004 in front of Zion Baptist Church in Truro, according to the encyclopedia. The Nova Scotia Arts Council awards the annual Portia White Prize. In 2016, she was among the figures considered for the $10 banknote, which went to Viola Desmond, whose case reached the public through Carrie Best’s newspaper.

Her story sits alongside the schooling story of her province. The last Black-only school there closed in 1983, as we reported earlier this month. White, who spent her early working years teaching in Black communities, built her career inside and against that system.

Sources: The Canadian Encyclopedia, entry on Portia White (thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/portia-white); Women and Gender Equality Canada, Women of Impact: Portia White (canada.ca).

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