Edgar Evans (tenor) - First Steps in Singing Career

First Steps in Singing Career

The opportunity to take up singing professionally came when Evans (by now an articled pupil to the County Architect) was heard singing 'Loch Lomond' by a talent scout in a pub called The Irish House, Piccadilly, while on a rugby trip to London in 1935. He was taken immediately to The Odd Spot nightclub in London's West End, from where he was referred to Arthur Fagg, conductor of the London Choral Society, who knew Dawson Freer, a singing teacher at the Royal College of Music.

One week later, Evans became a pupil of Freer's - who began by telling him that he sang too loudly. These early lessons helped Evans to establish himself as a professional singer, but he felt that his voice and vocal technique improved immeasurably when, later in his career, the Royal Opera arranged for him to continue his studies - this time with the Italian maestro Luigi Ricci in Rome.

For 18 months, Evans studied with Dawson Freer, using up his legacy from his father – who had died in 1927 – to support himself and pay the six guineas for every ten singing lessons. Running out of funds, Evans took on a milk round in Camberwell – for the Royal Arsenal Co-Operative - getting up at five o’clock each morning and, eventually, progressed to the round in Coldharbour Lane in Brixton.

Some 18 months after meeting Freer, Edgar gave his first audition. As a result Lilian Baylis offered him a contract to sing as a chorister, under the direction of chorus master Geoffrey Corbett, with the Sadler's Wells Opera Company in 1937 on a salary of £3 a week - the same wage he was getting as a milkman.