Ellabelle Davis

Ellabelle Davis. , Ellabelle Davis made her operatic debut in 1946 as Aida at the Opera Nacioanle in Mexico City. She sang the role again in La Scala in Milan, Italy in 1948. In 1947, the League of Composers named her the outstanding singer of the 1946-47 season and commissioned Lukas Foss to write the cantata The Song of Songs especially for her. "Her rich voice, artistry, spontaneous emotion, innate musical feeling, sincerity, joy of song, surpasses everything we have heard up to now … (she is) a sensation of her age!" So resounded the praises for New Rochelle-born Ellabelle Davis following a concert in Oslo, Norway., Years before she performed to standing-room-only audiences at Carnegie Hall and Town Hall in New York City, Ellabelle DAvis captured the heart of her community singing in the choir lofts of St. Catherine's A.M.E. Zion Church, Bethesda Baptist Church and in the auditorium of New Rochelle High School. She was born on March 17, 1907 into one of New Rochelle's well-known African American families. She grew up on Horton Avenue where her father had built the first house in the area., Ellabelle began singing at an early age. She sang herself to sleep with lullaby's when she was two, and when she was twelve, she had her debut in a joint recital with her sister Marie, who played the piano sponsored by the Colored Women's Club in New Rochelle. Later, Ellabelle and her sister had a radio program on WABC and were known as the Davis sisters., Bolstered by a strong and spirited family, an encouraging community and the financial backing of arts-patron Louise Crane, Ellabelle Davis gradually charted her unique course as one of the first black concert vocalists. Between appearances with such renowned conductors as Leonard Bernstein and Eugene Ormandy or on stopovers before one of her European tours, Miss Davis came home to New Rochelle where repeatedly during her career, she lent her "sumptuous voice and gracious platform presence" to benefit her community.