Estelle Pinckney Clough was a soprano singer who began performing during the 1880s. Clough was born in Worcester, Massachusetts in 1866. During the 1890s she appeared in concerts in New York and along the East Coast.

In 1903, Clough’s first major break came when she sang the title role in Verdi’s Aida in Theodore Drury’s New York production. When England’s renowned Anglo-African composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor came to the United States to conduct his work The Childhood of Hiawatha in 1904, Clough was one of the featured soloists.

The concert was given in Washington, D.C., Clough continued her concert singing career during the years that followed. In the 1930s she formed her own voice studio in Worcester.

sources:

African American Concert Singers Before 1950 by Darryl Glenn Nettles