World Renowned Mezzo Soprano, UT-Austin Grad, Barbara Smith Conrad Passes Away

AUSTIN, TX — World-renowned mezzo-soprano and University of Texas alumna Barbara Smith Conrad died early Monday morning from complications of Alzheimer's disease. She was 79.

Born in 1937 in Center Point near Pittsburg—a tiny Texas city occupying a total area of 3.3 square miles in the northeast part of the state—the 1959 UT-Austin graduate would go on to touch audiences throughout the world with her majestic voice, earning international acclaim.

But apart from her trailblazing opera career, she was a civil rights pioneer at her alma mater as a member of the Precursors—the first African American students to attend and integrate the University of Texas at Austin. As one of the first African American undergraduates admitted to the university in 1956, she was among the early pioneers in the movement to create a more open and diverse university community, university officials said.

“Barbara Conrad was a trailblazer — from her Precursor days at UT in 1956 and throughout her distinguished opera career,” Gregory L. Fenves, president of UT Austin, said in a prepared statement. “Her accomplishments and tenacity represent an important chapter in the university’s history. We will miss her talents and presence on the Forty Acres and beyond.”

Gifted with preternatural talents and a spellbinding stage presence, Conrad was encouraged to audition for the university’s 1957 production of “Dido and Aeneas,” according to her bio. She won the role of Dido, the queen of Carthage, opposite a white male student as Aeneas, her lover. Here, too, Conrad was a trailblazer as the biracial casting sparked a controversy that escalated to the Texas Legislature, whose members threatened to pull the university's state funding as a result. Sadly, the president of the university at the time, Logan Wilson, succumbed to the pressure of pro-segregation lawmakers, agreeing to remove Conrad from the cast.

“I felt so trapped,” Conrad said of the experience in a past interview. “I wanted to just say everything that came into my mind, but I was trying to be that person who was a healer. That was part of the upbringing. You tried to make peace and not war.”

After national media coverage drew attention to her story, singer Harry Belafonte offered to underwrite her studies at an institution of her choice, but Conrad ultimately decided to remain at the university and complete her music degree.

Her story was shared with millions through the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History’s award-winning documentary “When I Rise,” a film that premiered at the 2010 South by Southwest Film Festival and later aired nationally on the PBS series “Independent Lens.” It has since been distributed globally.

As documented in the film “When I Rise,” Conrad later sang beneath the dome of the Texas Capitol during the 2009 legislative session after state lawmakers passed a resolution honoring her.

“Barbara’s personality was characterized by peace and strength," Don Carleton, executive director of the Briscoe Center, said in a prepared statement. "She never saw herself as a victim and never let her role in the struggle for civil rights define her. Instead, she met controversy and prejudice with courage, grace and hope. I will always be grateful for her generosity, donating her papers to the center, working closely with us on 'When I Rise,' and helping us, along with Adm. Bob Inman, in establishing the university’s Endowment for the Study of American Spirituals.”

Following her graduation from UT Austin, Conrad went on to have a distinguished career as an opera singer. She performed with New York’s Metropolitan Opera for eight years from 1982 to 1989, and had leading operatic roles with the Vienna State Opera, the Teatro Nacional de Venezuela, the Houston Grand Opera, the New York City Opera, the Pittsburgh Opera and many other opera houses throughout the United States, Canada, Europe and South America.

Under the direction of some of the world’s leading conductors, Conrad performed much of the mezzo-soprano repertoire with the world’s greatest orchestras including the New York Philharmonic and the London, Boston, Cleveland and Detroit symphonies. The UT Austin Ex-Students’ Association named Conrad a Distinguished Alumna in 1985, and the university honored her with the founding of the Barbara Smith Conrad Endowed Presidential Scholarship in Fine Arts.

“Barbara Conrad will long be remembered around the world for her huge international career in opera. She’s a great credit to The University of Texas," Doug Dempster, dean of the College of Fine Arts, said in a prepared statement. "On the Forty Acres she’ll never be forgotten as a student who had the courage to stand — and sing out — against segregation at The University of Texas."

Conrad received the Texas Medal of Arts Award for Lifetime Achievement and the History-Making Texan Award in 2011. She was appointed to the Butler School of Music as a visiting professor and artist-in-residence in 2012, and she spoke at the commencement ceremony for the College of Fine Arts that year. Prior to that, she returned to give master classes and to coach opera students in the 1990s, and she performed in two concerts in the school in 2011.

For more photos of Conrad, click here.

>>> Barbara Smith Conrad at a November 4, 2005, concert in UT Austin's Main Building to promote awareness of the Endowment for the Study of American Spirituals at the Briscoe Center for American History. Photo by Marsha Miller, UT Austin