François Scarborough Clemmons

Dr. François S. Clemmons was born April 23, 1945 in Birmingham, Alabama and moved with his family to Youngstown, Ohio at an early age. When it was discovered that he had a singing voice of purity and power, he began singing at Church functions and at a nursery school. His first songs were the Spirituals of pre-Civil War America, which he had heard his mother sing at home while she was working. He branched out to sing for different community groups, and for a while, was even the lead singer of a rock 'n' roll group called the 'Jokers'. He earned his Bachelor of Music degree at Oberlin College (Ohio) and his Master of Fine Arts at Carnegie-Mellon University (Pennsylvania). During graduation exercises in 1996 at Middlebury College in Vermont, he was given the honorary degree of Doctor of Arts. In 1968 he won the regional Metropolitan Opera Auditions in Pittsburgh, and went on the Cleveland, Ohio where he won a position in the prestigious Metropolitan Opera Studio. He sang there for seven