William Pearson was an American born baritone

Baritone

Baritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...

, who spent most of his career in Europe, especially in Germany. He was notable for his wide repertoire, stretching from Bach

Bạch

Bạch is a Vietnamese surname. The name is transliterated as Bai in Chinese and Baek, in Korean.Bach is the anglicized variation of the surname Bạch.-Notable people with the surname Bạch:* Bạch Liêu...

 and Handel

HANDEL

HANDEL was the code-name for the UK's National Attack Warning System in the Cold War. It consisted of a small console consisting of two microphones, lights and gauges. The reason behind this was to provide a back-up if anything failed....

 to spirituals, modernist and avant garde compositions.

Pearson was born in Tennessee

Tennessee

Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...

 and studied at the School of Music at the University of Louisville

University of Louisville

The University of Louisville is a public university in Louisville, Kentucky. When founded in 1798, it was the first city-owned public university in the United States and one of the first universities chartered west of the Allegheny Mountains. The university is mandated by the Kentucky General...

, Kentucky

Kentucky

The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...

. In 1956 he came to Europe on a Fulbright Scholarship, the first black singer to receive the ward. After further study at the Musikhochschule, Cologne

Cologne

Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...

, he sang at various German opera houses, and at Budapest

Budapest

Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...

 and Helsinki

Helsinki

Helsinki is the capital and largest city in Finland. It is in the region of Uusimaa, located in southern Finland, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, an arm of the Baltic Sea. The population of the city of Helsinki is , making it by far the most populous municipality in Finland. Helsinki is...

 where he scored a great success as Porgy in Gershwin's Porgy and Bess

Porgy and Bess

Porgy and Bess is an opera, first performed in 1935, with music by George Gershwin, libretto by DuBose Heyward, and lyrics by Ira Gershwin and DuBose Heyward. It was based on DuBose Heyward's novel Porgy and subsequent play of the same title, which he co-wrote with his wife Dorothy Heyward...

in 1965.

After leaving the opera house, Pearson gave concerts and recitals around Germany, as well as in the major cultural centres in Europe.

Several modern composers wrote music for him, including György Ligeti

György Ligeti

György Sándor Ligeti was a composer of contemporary classical music. Born in a Hungarian Jewish family in Transylvania, Romania, he briefly lived in Hungary before becoming an Austrian citizen.-Early life:...

 (he was also one of the soloists in Ligeti's Aventures (1962)), Sylvano Bussotti

Sylvano Bussotti

Sylvano Bussotti is an Italian composer of contemporary music whose work is unusually notated and often creates special problems of interpretation.Born in Florence, Bussotti learned to play the violin as a child, becoming a prodigy...

 (Pearson wrote the text himself for Bussotti's Pearson Piece (1960) for baritone and piano) and Dieter Schnebel

Dieter Schnebel

Dieter Schnebel is a composer. From 1976 until his retirement in 1995, Schnebel served as professor of experimental music at the Berlin Hochschule der Künste.-Career:...

, wrote music for him, while he also recorded works by Hans Werner Henze

Hans Werner Henze

Hans Werner Henze is a German composer of prodigious output best known for "his consistent cultivation of music for the theatre throughout his life"...

 and Mauricio Kagel

Mauricio Kagel

Mauricio Kagel was a German-Argentine composer. He was notable for his interest in developing the theatrical side of musical performance .-Biography:...

. He was also one of the few exponents of Peter Maxwell Davies

Peter Maxwell Davies

Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, CBE is an English composer and conductor and is currently Master of the Queen's Music.-Biography:...

' challenging work Eight Songs for a Mad King

Eight Songs for a Mad King

Eight Songs for a Mad King is a monodrama by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies with a libretto by Randolph Stow, based on words of George III. The work was written for the South-African actor Roy Hart and the composer's ensemble the Pierrot Players, and premiered on 22 April 1969...

.