Astra Desmond
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Astra Desmond, born Torquay, 10 April 1893, was a British mezzo-soprano of the early and middle twentieth century.
She was a pupil of Blanche Marchesi (as was her colleague Muriel Brunskill).
Astra Desmond made few gramophone recordings, but is preserved on disc in the role of Sorceress in the first recording of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas.
On 5 October 1938 she - together with Brunskill - was one of the original 16 singers in Vaughan Williams’s Serenade to Music, the recording of which, made at EMI's Abbey Road studio shortly thereafter, has been transferred to compact disc by several companies.
Earlier, in 1932, Vaughan Williams had dedicated to her his Magnificat (for contralto solo, women's choir, solo flute and orchestra. (Later, she received the contrasting tribute of having a variety of rose named after her.)
Like many singers she took up teaching later in her career,(at the Royal Academy of Music) but was unusual in also writing educational books on music, including one for the BBC Music Guides on Schumann's Lieder which remained in print for many years.
Astra Desmond succeeded Liza Lehmann, Cécile Chaminade, Fanny Davies, Rosa Newmarch and Myra Hess as president of the Society of Women Musicians in the UK.
She died on 16 August 1973.
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