Contact: Sammy McDavid
STARKVILLE, Miss.--International opera star Simon Estes will be featured Feb. 8 at Mississippi State.
To begin at 7 p.m. in Lee Hall auditorium, the free program is organized by the Richard Holmes Cultural Diversity Center as part of the university's annual Black History Month observance.
Since being named a prize winner at the 1966 Tchaikovsky competition in Moscow, Estes has performed with all major international opera companies. Of more than 100 bass-baritone roles, he is most often associated, among others, with King Phillip in "Don Carlos," Wotan in Wagner's "Rings" cycle and Amfortas in "Parsifal."
Estes is a Centerville, Iowa, native who first sang at age 8 in his home church. While working his way through the University of Iowa as a pre-medicine and psychology major, he became the first black member of the school's Old Gold Singers.
After entering New York's Juilliard School of Music, he traveled to Europe with the support of the Martha Baird Rockefeller Foundation, New York Community Trust and NAACP. His operatic debut with the Deutche Oper in Berlin came as Ramfis in "Aida."
When he is not performing, Estes teaches at Iowa State University and Wartburg College, another Hawkeye State institution, as well as at Boston University. He also regularly leads master classes around the country.
In 1993, he established the Simon Estes International Foundation for Children to assist underprivileged and needy children. Four United States scholarships and one South African music high school are named in his honor.
"Simon Estes in His Own Voice," his autobiography, was published in 1999.
For more information, telephone Holmes Center director Aretha Jones-Cook at 662-325-2033.
For more information about Mississippi State University, see http://www.msstate.edu/.