Astra Desmond CBE (10 April 1893 – 16 August 1973) was a British contralto of the early and middle twentieth century.
Astra Desmond was born Gwendolyn Mary Thompson, in Torquay, England. She was educated at Notting Hill High School and Westfield College, where she was a classical scholar. She studied singing with Blanche Marchesi (as did her colleague Muriel Brunskill) and Louise Trenton and in Berlin with Ernst Grezebach and Conrad von Bos.
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Astra Desmond CBE (10 April 1893 – 16 August 1973) was a British contralto of the early and middle twentieth century.
Astra Desmond was born Gwendolyn Mary Thompson, in Torquay, England. She was educated at Notting Hill High School and Westfield College, where she was a classical scholar. She studied singing with Blanche Marchesi (as did her colleague Muriel Brunskill) and Louise Trenton and in Berlin with Ernst Grezebach and Conrad von Bos.
Desmond's career was mostly in concert and recital, but she made some operatic appearances. A 1916 review of the Carl Rosa Opera Company described her as a new singer of great promise. At Sadler's Wells she sang Delilah and Carmen and at Covent Garden, Ortrud and Fricka.
In recital, Desmond was noted for her performances of songs by Edvard Grieg about which she wrote a 25-page article in Music and Letters in 1941, reprinted in Grieg. A Symposium, ed. Gerald Abraham. She also made a number of singing translations of Grieg's songs, published by...
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