Nellie B. Mitchell was born a free person of color in 1845 in Dover, NH. She was the daughter of Charles J Brown and Martha A Runnels Brown. One publication called her "one of Boston's favorite cantatrices." She trained as a singer at the New England Conservatory of Music and graduated in 1879.
She was a popular professional singer and at one point was lead soprano in four different white churches in Boston. She also gave concerts throughout the region including at Steinway Hall in New York City.
She held many prestigious positions throughout her professional career. She formed her own touring company; The Nellie Brown Mitchell Concert Company, she was music director at Bloomfield Street Church in Boston, and she was the head of the vocal department at the Hedding Academy in New Hampshire.
After she retired from touring she taught voice techniques to African American women students in Boston. She also invented the ‘phoneterion’ a device meant to help train proper tongue position for vocal students.
She was married to civil war veteran Charles Lewis Mitchell. She was widowed in 1912 and passed away on January 5, 1924, at 78 years old.
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