page_title: Portia White
section_title: Early life and family
hierarchical_section_title: Portia White / Early life and family
caption_attribution_description: English: Cornwallis Baptist Church, Halifax, Nova Scotia
context_page_description: Portia May White was a Canadian contralto, known for becoming the first Black Canadian concert singer to achieve international fame. Growing up as part of her father's church choir in Halifax, Nova Scotia, White competed in local singing competitions as a teenager and later trained at the Halifax Conservatory of Music. In 1941 and 1944, she made her national and international debuts as a singer, receiving critical acclaim for her performances of both classical European music and African-American spirituals. White later completed tours throughout Europe, the Caribbean, and Central and South America.
  When vocal difficulties and cancer eventually contributed to her retirement in 1952, White settled in Toronto and subsequently taught young Canadian musicians such as Lorne Greene, Dinah Christie, Don Francks, Robert Goulet and Anne Marie Moss. One of White's final major public appearances was a special command performance for Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip in 1964.
  White was declared a person of national historic significance by the Government of Canada.
context_section_description: Portia May White was born June 24, 1911, in Truro, Nova Scotia, the third of 13 children born to Izie Dora (White) and William Andrew White. Her mother was a descendant of Black Loyalists in Nova Scotia, while her father was the son of former slaves from Virginia; he moved to Canada independently. William attended Acadia University in Nova Scotia, later becoming the first Black Canadian to graduate from Acadia with a Doctorate of Divinity. After World War I, the White family moved to Halifax, and William became the minister of Cornwallis Street Baptist Church.
  Many other members of Portia White's family went on to achieve distinction in Canadian political and cultural life, including her brothers Jack, a noted Canadian labour union leader; Bill, the first Canadian of African heritage to run for political office in Canada; and Lorne, a regular performer for television show Singalong Jubilee. White also became aunt to Senator Donald Oliver and political commentator Sheila White.
  
  Portia White began her musical career at the age of six as a choir member at Cornwallis Street Baptist Church, where her mother was also the musical director. As White grew older, she became the choir director and assisted with church fundraising by singing on her father's weekly radio show. In an interview later in life, White explained that her love of music  and performing had developed early:
  Nobody ever told me to sing, I was born singing. I think that if nobody had ever talked to me, I wouldn't be able to communicate in any other way but by singing. I was always bowing in my dreams and singing before people and parading across the stage as a very little girl.
  As a teenager, White entered a local singing competition with her sister June, the pair performing an aria from Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor. They won first prize. Although White wanted to pursue a singing career, she could not afford professional training at the time.
  White entered Dalhousie University in 1929, studying to become a teacher. From the early 1930s she taught in Africville and Lucasville, two small Halifax communities that were predominately Black Nova Scotian, and during this time White was finally able to begin paying for vocal lessons. She competed regularly at the Halifax Music Festival, winning the Helen Kennedy Silver Cup in 1935, 1937 and 1938, until the festival organizers finally decided to award her the cup permanently.
  In 1939, White won a scholarship to continue her musical training at the Halifax Conservatory of Music with noted Italian baritone Ernesto Vinci, and Vinci taught her using the bel canto vocal style. White soon gave her first formal recital, and after the start of World War II she continued singing in concerts and radio shows. She won awards at provincial music festivals, and in mid-1941 she met Edith Read, a visiting headmistress from a Toronto school who offered to arrange new performing opportunities for White.
caption: The New Horizons Baptist Church (formerly the Cornwallis Street Baptist Church)
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