Fisk Jubilee Singers and Quartet, Loudin Jubilee Singers, Leota Henson, Florence Mills Featured on Next Episode of "The Noshing with Nina Show"
Bill Egan , author of the new book African American Entertainers in Australia and New Zealand: A History, 1788-1941 is Nina Kennedy's guest on the November episode of The Noshing with Nina Show . The Fisk Jubilee Singers under director Frederick Loudin - who had sung with the original Fisk Jubilee Singers of 1872 - sailed to Australia in 1888, and remained in the "Australian Colonies" for 3 and a half years. Bill Egan devoted several pages in his book to the Jubilee Singers, and quoted some of the observations written by piano accompanist Leota Henson. The first African American woman to study piano at the Leipzig Conservatory of Music - which was founded by composer Felix Mendelssohn in 1843 - Leota had typed seven pages that she titled "A Few Notes on the Life of Leota Henson." Host Nina Kennedy found those seven pages in a box of her grandmother's papers. Her grandmother, Nina Hortense Clinton, had sung with a later group of Jubilee Singers (1900-1903), ...