Beardslee, Bethany
Beardslee, Bethany
Beardslee, Bethany, American soprano; b. Lansing, Mich., Dec. 25, 1927. She studied at Mich. State Univ., then received a scholarship to the Juilliard School of Music in N.Y., making her N.Y. debut in 1949. She soon became known as a specialist in modern music, evolving an extraordinary technique with a flutelike ability to sound impeccably precise intonation. She also mastered the art of Sprechstimme, which enabled her to give fine renditions of such works as Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire, and she also was a brilliant performer of vocal parts in scores by Berg, Webern, and Stravinsky. In 1976 she joined the faculty of Westminster Choir Coll. in Princeton, N.J. In 1981–82 she was a prof. of music at the Univ. of Tex. in Austin. After serving as performer-in-residence at the Univ. of Calif, at Davis (1982–83), she taught at Brooklyn Coll. of the City Univ. of N.Y. (from 1983). She was married to Jacques-Louis Monod and, later, to Godfrey Winham .
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire