Devora Nadworney

Nadworney was born in New York City,[1] the daughter of Russian immigrants. She lived in Bayonne, New Jersey, and attended the Bayonne High School.[1] She went on to attend Hunter College,[1] where she received her B.A.;[1] and she later taught elementary school[2] while she studied music in New York, at the Aborn School of Opera.[3] She also studied with Johanna Bayerlee.[4] She sang on benefit programs with opera stars during World War I.[1]

In 1921, she won a prize from the Tri-City Convention of the National Federation of Music Clubs.[5][6] A year later, in 1922, she was given the National Prize for Voice.[1]

Johanna Bayerlee and Devora Nadworney, from a 1921 publication.

Nadworney was a contralto singer.[1][7] "Few young contraltos at present before the public can rival the equipment of Devora Nadworney", commented one publication in 1918.[3] She was under the management of Annie Friedberg in 1918,[8] and sang at Liberty Loan fundraisers[9] and gave concerts for the troops stationed near New York City during World War I.[10] She sometimes gave concerts of Russian folk songs while dressed in traditional embroidered costume.[11] She was also popular as a church soloist, in oratorios.[12] In 1921 she made a recording for the Victor Talking Machine Company.[13]

Nadworney had the distinction of being the first singer heard over a radio network in the United States, in 1928.[1] Through the 1920s and into the 1930s she was especially active in radio.[14] She sang the lead in Carmen on air in 1925, and Aida in 1926, both with the WEAF Grand Opera Company, under conductor Cesare Sodero.[15][7] She was associated with the Chicago Civic Opera from 1925 until at least 1934.[16]

In 1945 she sang at a noon concert at New York City's Town Hall.[17]

Devora Nadworney married lawyer Herman Spingarn in 1935; and they divorced in 1941. She died in 1948, aged 52 years, in New York. Her obituary listing in Billboard Magazine described her as a "pioneer radio contralto... one of the first singers to perform over radio."[18][19]

The National Federation of Music Clubs offers the Devora Nadworney Award for young composers.[20]