Marie Selika Williams

Marie Selika Williams (c. 1849 – May 19, 1937) was an American coloratura soprano. She was the first Black artist to perform in the White House.

Biography She was born Marie Smith in Natchez, Mississippi, around 1849. After she was born, her family moved to Cincinnati, where a wealthy white family funded voice lessons for her. She moved to San Francisco in the 1870s and studied with Signora G. Bianchi. She then studied in Chicago with Antonio Farini, who taught the Italian method. There she met a fellow student, operatic baritone Sampson Williams, whom she would later marry. Between 1878 and 1879, she was scouted by an audience member named Mrs. Francis Bailey Gaskin of San Francisco, who encouraged her to study in Boston. Williams went on to study German, French, and Italian in Boston while residing in the home of Mrs. Gaskin's mother. Due to her rendition of E. W. Mulder's "Polka Staccato", she was often called the "Queen of Staccato". On November 13, she sang for President Rutherford B. Hayes and First Lady Lucy Webb Hayes in the Green Room and was introduced by Marshall Fred Douglass. She also performed at Philadelphia's Academy of Music in 1878 and at New York's Steinway Hall in 1879. From 1882 to 1885, she performed across Europe with her husband, giving a concert in St James's Hall, London, for Queen Victoria in 1883. Her last performance was at the New Star Casino, led by Irwin Martin, director of the Music School Settlement for Colored People in the City of New York, alongside Irwin Martin’s students, students from the Riverdale Colored Orphan Asylum Chorus, and Marian Anderson. She died on May 19, 1937.

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