I Sang the Unsingable

2017 | Biography

American soprano Bethany Beardslee rose to prominence in the postwar years, when the modernist sensibilities of European artists and thinkers were flooding American shores and challenging classical music audiences. With her light lyric voice, her musical intuition, and her fearless dedication to new music, Beardslee became the go-to girl for twelve-tone music in New York City. She was the first American singer to build a repertoire performing the music of Arnold Schoenberg, Anton Webern, Alban Berg, Milton Babbitt, and Pierre Boulez, making a vibrant career singing difficult music. I Sang the Unsingable is an autobiographical account of the acclaimed twentieth-century art song soprano. In her memoir, Beardslee tells the story of how she made her way from an inauspicious depression-era East Lansing to Carnegie Hall, and how her unique combination of musical gifts and training were alchemy for challenging mid-century music. This is Beardslee's own perspective on a formidable catalogue of premieres, a forty-six-year long career, and a deep and lifelong dedication to performing the work of the composers of our time.

Born in 1925 in Lansing, Michigan, Bethany Beardslee is an American soprano particularly noted for her collaborations with major twentieth-century composers. Minna Zallman Proctor is an editor and essayist. Her book and art criticism has been published in BookForum, BOMB, The Nation, Aperture, NPR.org, American Scholar, The New York Times Book Review, and Salon. She teaches in the Creative Writing Program at Fairleigh Dickinson University and is editor of The Literary Review.

Bethany Beardslee (Author)

Minna Zallman Proctor (Author)