Honoring the Memory of Joy Simpson

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  Joy Simpson, Soprano, On South African Tour

Published: March 26, 1987

LEAD: Joy Simpson, an American soprano, died early today after suffering a brain hemorrhage during a performance last week, a hospital spokeswoman said. Ms. Simpson was 40 years old. The soprano, who was from Philadelphia, went into a coma Saturday and never recovered, the spokeswoman said.

Joy Simpson, an American soprano, died early today after suffering a brain hemorrhage during a performance last week, a hospital spokeswoman said. Ms. Simpson was 40 years old. The soprano, who was from Philadelphia, went into a coma Saturday and never recovered, the spokeswoman said.

Ms. Simpson was on a three-week tour of South Africa in defiance of the United Nations cultural boycott against the country. The soprano, who is black, said she came to South Africa to bring ''a message of love and to spread goodwill.''

She was performing a spiritual, ''Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child,'' at Cape Town's City Hall Thursday night when she collapsed. Doctors from the audience came to her aid, and she was taken to the hospital.

Ms. Simpson came from a singing family. Her mother and father, and her five sisters and two brothers have been singing for many years as the Simpson Family Singers.

She performed with Opera North in Philadelphia and with the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Shehad toured many countries, including the Soviet Union.

CONCERT: JOY SIMPSON SINGS

By WILL CRUTCHFIELD

Published: June 10, 1984

Joy Simpson, the soprano who won the 1976 Naumburg competition, has a big voice and a feeling for big music. At her Carnegie Recital Hall concert Wednesday, the last ''new voices'' program of the season, she sang Mozart, Schubert, Faure, Debussy and others with vitality, directness of utterance, and musical security.

One can see why she has been in demand for high-powered dramatic roles in opera.

But it would be no favor to Miss Simpson to pretend that her voice sounded healthy. The tell-tale signs of premature stress were far too insistent - tones that didn't find their quality until a longish instant after she began them; a sense of effort in moving from note to note in quick music; a dulled, worn middle voice between the exciting highs and lows; a slow, wide vibration for which it is hard to find any term but the dreaded one of ''wobble.''

The opera business needs talents like Miss Simpson's. It will be a real loss if she allows herself to become an example of the classic ''too much too soon'' syndrome. The evidence Wednesday was not encouraging, except that it encouraged one to hope she will take care of herself and give in the future the excellent performances she surely has in her.

The fine pianists were Sylvia Olden Lee and, for a pair of her own psalm settings, Miss Simpson's sister Evelyn Simpson Curenton.