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Photo Gallery: Roland Hayes June 3, 1887 - January 1, 1977
Marker text:
Roland Hayes, the first internationally renowned
African-American classical singerwas born in Gordon County and performed at
this site, the former Calhoun High School Auditorium. Hayes opened doors for
African-American concert and opera performers and elevated Negro spirituals
to the classical level, singing them in concert with operatic arias. He sang
in seven languages. Hayes studied at Nashville's Fisk Universitty and toured
theUnited States, performing at Carnegie Hall and Boston Symphony Hall. His
foreign tours included a command performance for King George V and Queen
Mary at Buckingham Palace. At the height of his half-century career, Hayes
was one of the world's highest paid singers. He made a number of recordings
and published his music in the book My Songs. In 1991, Roland Hayes
was named to the Georgia Music Hall of Fame. On his 80th birthday, Hayes was
honored with this tribute. "He is and ever was at once one voice, one race,
one citizen, one triumph in belief, one compromise with nothing ... he is a
country to himself that borders not on nations whole or sundered, but on
art, or life- on people prizing now and then nobility in man."
064-34 Georgia Historic Marker 1995
Auditorium:
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