Bowers, Thomas J.

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Bowers, Thomas J.

Bowers, Thomas J ., esteemed black American tenor; b. Philadelphia, c. 1823; d. there, Oct. 3, 1885. He studied organ with his brother, John C. Bowers, succeeding him as organist of Philadelphia’s St. Thomas’s African Episcopal Church (c. 1838). After vocal training with Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield, he began a North American duo-recital tour with her with a performance at Philadephia’s Sansom St. Hall (1854). Critics hailed him as the “American Mario” and the “colored Mario.”

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire