Agnes Kimball

Agnes Kimball (October 1881 – January 5, 1918) was an American soprano. She was a highly popular recording artist in the United States during the 1910s, and the Discography of American Historical Recordings has catalogued her work.

In live performance, Kimball spent the majority of her career working as a paid church singer. Born in Indiana, she began her career as a professional church vocalist in the early 1900s at Tabernacle Presbyterian Church in Indianapolis. Agnes Kimball was born Agnes Grigsby in October 1881. (1=There is a scratch out in the decade portion of the written year for Agnes Grigsby in the 1900 United States Federal Census.) It makes it unclear as to whether her birth year should be 1871 or 1881. The month October is clearly written. However, her written age in the 1900 census record is given as 19 y.o., which would make the 1881 year of birth most likely correct, and the 1871 year of birth incorrect. In March 1899 she was a founding member of the Ladies Musicale in Princeton; an organization that was both an amateur women's choir and a group which provided its members opportunities to perform in public concerts as soloists. Performances by Kimball and the group's other members were covered in the local paper, the Princeton Clarion-Leader. In December 1899 she traveled to Memphis, Tennessee, where she performed as a guest singer with two churches. She was active as an amateur soprano soloist at the Cumberland Presbyterian Church in Princeton in 1900.

Vocal training and early career While the Indiana, U.S., Marriage Index, 1800–1941 states Agnes Grigsby married Charles F. Kimball on June 12, 1901, The couple settled in Indianapolis where Agnes studied singing for several years under Franz Bellinger. Bellinger was a baritone who had studied under the famous singing teacher Giovanni Battista Lamperti, and was a respected voice teacher known for teaching from a vocal pedagogy rooted in Lamperti's methods.

While studying with Bellinger, Kimball became a paid resident soprano soloist at the Tabernacle Presbyterian Church in Indianapolis, They had one daughter and divorced in 1913. Kimball was by that point a well-known singer, and the divorce was widely reported in the American press.

In 1909 Kimball was the soprano soloist in Gioachino Rossini's Stabat Mater which she performed with members of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra under conductor Charles S. Cornell at the graduation ceremony for California State Normal School (now Pennsylvania Western University, California). That same year she was the soprano soloist in a concert of Joseph Haydn's The Seasons in Pittsburgh. In the summer of 1910 she gave a concert at the convention of the Indiana Music Teachers Association.

Career in New York City and on the national concert stage

By March 1910 Agnes Kimball had left Pittsburgh, and moved to New York City by herself to pursue her singing career. Her daughter, Eloise, was placed into the care of Agnes's sister, Mrs. Olive G. Lewis, at this time. Kimball was hired as the resident soprano soloist at Brick Presbyterian Church, beginning her employment there on May 1, 1910. She commanded one of the highest salaries for a church vocalist in the country while she was singing at Brick Presbyterian, The Hyechka Club of Tulsa sponsored Kimball, Herbert, and the orchestra when it toured to Tulsa for performances at Tulsa's sixth annual music festival in 1912. Kimball also made several recordings with the orchestra which was billed as the Victor Light Opera Company on record.

Kimball's career was also aided by Frank Croxton when he invited her to join his vocal quartet, the Croxton Quartet. The other members of that quartet included tenor Reed Miller and his wife, contralto Nevada Van der Veer. With this group, Kimball performed in concerts both in New York City and on tour, and made several recordings for a variety of record labels in 1911–1912.

Kimball was also active as a guest artist with other organizations. In 1911 she was the soprano soloist in George Frideric Handel's Messiah with the Apollo Chorus of Chicago at the Auditorium Theatre. In 1913 she performed in a benefit concert in St. Louis that was organized and conducted by composer George Balch Nevin. In 1915 she performed at the first music festival organized in the city of Bowling Green, Ohio. That same year she gave a recital at Aeolian Hall in Indianapolis sponsored by the Aeolian Company.

Later life in Ohio and death

In 1914 Kimball married a second time, this time to businessman and manufacturer Edward T. Affleck. She spent the last years of her career as a paid soprano soloist at St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Toledo. "Gypsy love song" from Victor Herbert's The Fortune Teller (1911, Edison Records); and "Medley of Christmas carols" (1911, Columbia Records). With the Victor Light Opera Company (VLOC) she made several records in 1911 for the Victor Talking Machine Company (VTMC). The first of these was "Gems from Florodora" which consisted of selections from the opera of that name by Leslie Stuart; among them the famous double sextet, "Tell me pretty maiden". This was followed by similar records of operetta selections: "Gems from The Sultan of Sulu" by composer Alfred George Wathall; "Gems from Rob Roy" by composer Reginald de Koven;

Kimball was a member of the VTMC's "Victor Opera Quartet" with whom she recorded several solo arias as well as works for multiple singers. These included the arias "Un bel dì, vedremo" (sung in English as "Some day he'll come") from Giacomo Puccini's Madama Butterfly (1911), and "Spring Song" from Herbert and Joseph Redding's Natoma (1912); and the quartet "Bella figlia dell'amore" from Act III of Verdi's Rigoletto.

In reviewing Kimball's singing on her recordings of "Hear ye, Israel" and "Far off I hear a lover's flute", Riemens & Kutsch stated that Kimball "showed a beautifully controlled and technically excellent soprano voice."

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