| Biography | Dorothy (Ellen) Silk (4 May 1883 - 30 July 1942) was an English soprano. Silk was born in Kings Norton, Worcestershire, England. She studied in Birmingham, then in Vienna under Johannes Ress. She made her London debut at Queen's Hall. From 1921 she was involved with Rutland Boughton's Glastonbury Players.
She particularly built her reputation as a Bach singer, and gave pioneering chamber concerts (1921-6) in which she performed cantatas by Schütz and Tunder. She also sang at the Royal Albert Hall, Aeolian Hall and provincial centres. She was professor of singing at the Royal College of Music.
She won the admiration of the music editor and choral conductor William G. Whittaker, who in 1916 wrote to Gustav Holst warmly commending her as "a beautiful artist and woman" and urging him to send her any of his solo soprano works for her to study. She sang in the public premiere of Holsts Savitri, and sang in its subsequent production in Covent Garden. She was much admired by the composer who expressed a preference for her as soloist for his Choral Symphony, which she sang with great success at its Leeds premiere on 7 October 1925. She also sang the premiere of Holst's Humbert Wolfe songs, which took place on 9 November 1929 at Louise Hanson-Dyer's house-warming in Paris.
In 1934 Silk joined Cuthbert Kelly's New English Singers and toured several times with the group in North America. Kelly said that her voice was "like a chameleon. It changes colour to an oboe when accompanied by one: same with a flute." Although Silk's voice, described as light and flexible, was considered ideal for Bach, she also made a fine impression singing the soprano solo part in Verdis Requiem. She died, aged 59, in Alvechurch, Worcestershire. |