Evening star., 1940-06-30
Mrs. Torbert Leaving School Job
After Long Years of Service
Vocal Music Teacher
Praised by Board
Of Education
BY JESSIE FAINT EVANS.

With more than a quarter of a
century of service behind her as a
teacher of vocal music in the public
school system Of the District, Mrs.
William S. Torbert is voluntarily
ending her active teaching connec-
ton.
While not yet of compulsory re-
tirement age, Ms. Torbert feels that
her work in organizing the music
department of Woodrow Wilson
High School has been completed
and that her active career in the
public schools should end with this
assignment.
Her successful efforts with mvri-
ads of her one-time pupils are bear
ing rich fruition, however, in the
musical careers of many of them.
Two, including her own daughter
Mrs. William S. Bryne, are in the
music corps of Washington schools.
A number are professors in music
colleges. Still others have won dis
tinction on the concert stage and
are the musical directors of radio
programs on the Nations leading
broadcasting systems.
In accepting Mrs. Torbert's an
plication for retirement the Board
OF Education in citation reciting
the various phases of "a long and
very valuable period of service in
the public schools of Washington"
concluded with this statement.
Her work in the development and
training of the voices of bows and
girls under her direction has been
truly remarkable Time after time
she has produced singers who have
not had the advantage of private
teachers, but who have developed
very fine quality of tone and con-
troll"
A native of Washington, Mrs. Tor
bert is the wife of a well-known
lawyer and civic leader and the
mother of Hugh S. Torbert, archi-
tect, and Of Mrs. Janet Torbert
Bryne, who is following in her foot
steps as a teacher of vocal music in
the schools.
A grandmother as well, Mrs, Tor
bert at the last school session had
the unusual and delightful expert
ence' OF teaching her own grand
son, Hugh S. Torbert, jr.. in her
music classes at Woodrow Wilson.
AS Janet L. Whitcomb. Mrs. Tor
bert was educated in the public
schools of this city graduating from
old Central High School in the class
OF 1891. Her training in music and
her higher educational background
were received under private tutors.
IN the Washington College of Mu-
sic, Washington Musical Institute
George Washington University and
Columbia University.
She has sung as a solo member of
the choirs of Epiphany, st. Thomas
and st. Marks Churches. She was
active in the old Washington Choral
Society under Anton Kasper when
it produced Handel's Messiah. "
Hayden's Creation" Gounod's Re
demption" "Mendelssohn's Elijah, p"
AtAN Nv L adls CdllIG odClI Od III
son and Delilah" and other musical
works of classic beauty. In all of
these Mrs. Torbert had solo parts.
For number of years Mrs. Tor
bert was member of the Musical
Art Society conducted by Otto Tor
ney Simon.
Another musical activity was that
of choir director of groups of young
singers in the production of Gilbert
and Sullivan operettas.
When the late Emile Berliner was
experimenting with the first of his
disc gramophone records, he made
several recordings of Mrs. Torberts S
voice, which he declared to be the
first successful recording of high
soprano voice
Mrs. Torbert entered the field of
musical education Immediately after