Wysor, Elizabeth, 1912-2000

Elizabeth F. Wysor was born on May 14, 1908, in Easton, Pennsylvania. She was educated at Easton High School (1924–1927), the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (1928–1929), the Juilliard School in New York (1929–1932), Staatliche Akademie der Tonkunst in Munich, Germany (1932–1933), and Mozarteum, Salzburg, Austria (1948–1949). As a member of Easton's First Congregational Church she was introduced to church music at an early age, and for a long period of her life she would perform in churches.

Since her Town Hall debut in New York in 1938, Elizabeth Wysor gave five concerts there and also appeared in Carnegie Hall with the New York Philharmonic and the Boston Symphony Orchestras. She sang leading contralto roles throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe (operas by Richard Wagner, Giuseppe Verdi, Giacomo Meyerbeer, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky), and also performed many times for the United States armed forces in hospitals, on USO tours, and for the Red Cross. She was a member of Mu Phi Epsilon National Music Honorary Sorority, the Society of American Musicians, the National Opera Association, Society of American Pen Women, and the Community Concerts Association Board of Evanston, Illinois. In 1953 Elizabeth Wysor became Faculty Advisor of Sigma chapter at Northwestern University of the National Music Sorority.

As professor of voice (1943–1953) at Mary Washington College of the University of Virginia she studied and taught Greek folk, Byzantine, and classical Greek music.

She recorded for Remington Records, Deutsche Grammophon, and Allegro Records.

On May 15, 1953 she was appointed assistant professor of voice at the School of Music at Northwestern University, where she taught mainly applied voice, phonetics and diction. In 1962 she traveled to Greece for research on the arts of ancient Greece, music in modern Greece, and folk and other contemporary Greek vocal literature and its ancient origins.

In 1973 Elizabeth Wysor retired from Northwestern University as professor emeritus. She died on October 6, 2000, in Kirkland Village, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where she resided.

From the guide to the Elizabeth Wysor (1908-2000) Papers, 1927-2000, 1938-1948, (Northwestern University Archives)