Charlotte Wesley Holloman, a gifted pianist, lyric soprano and beloved teacher and mentor to hundreds of devoted students, died July 30 at the Stoddard Baptist Nursing Home in Washington D.C. after a long battle with breast cancer. She was 93 and a longtime Vineyard summer resident.

A native Washingtonian, Mrs. Holloman attended Garnet-Patterson Junior High School, Dunbar High School (class of 1937), and graduated cum laude from Howard University with a bachelor’s degree in music. She earned her Master of Arts degree in voice and music education from Columbia University.

Mrs. Holloman was an accomplished musician and talented performer from her earliest beginnings. Her list of credits is extensive and impressive, including international subjects and venues. She toured in concert with Margaret Bonds and Todd Duncan in the U.S. and the Bahamas, singing excerpts from Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess. Their concert in Bermuda had the first interracial audience in the island’s history

In November of 1950, she appeared in her first Broadway role at the Broadhurst Theater in the Langston Hughes-Jan Meyerowitz musical drama The Barrier which was based on the play Mulatto. She also worked closely in May 1952 with Noble Sissle, Eubie Blake, and Flournoy Miller in their revival of the musical comedy Shuffle Along. She appeared in Charles Friedman’s musical play My Darlin’ Aida at the Winter Garden Theatre in New York city from October of 1952 through January of 1953.

She was the featured soloist with the Dayton Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, and at the Berkshire Music Festival, and a cast member in the road company of Carmen Jones.

In 1961, Mrs. Holloman received the Martha Baird Rockefeller Fund for Music grant to pursue voice studies with top instructors in Europe. She was contracted by the Saarbrücken and Essen opera companies in Germany, establishing a repertoire of 22 leading roles through her creation of major operatic characters in more than 13 operas in Germany, England and Italy.

The highly esteemed coloratura received operatic distinction for her performances in The Magic Flute starring as the Queen of the Night and the First Lady simultaneously — a first. Mrs. Holloman’s long list of credits included her roles in Tosca, Nabucco, Aulis, Andrea Chénier, Hansel und Gretel, Das Rheingold, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, San Domingo, Moll Flanders and Madame Butterfly.

Charlotte Holloman was born on March 24, 1922 in Georgetown, Washington D.C. into a loving, educated and musical family. Her mother, Florence Louise Johnson Wesley, was an English teacher and socialite of Baltimore, Md., and her father, Charles Harris Wesley was an accomplished historian and minister in Louisville, Ky. and president of Wilberforce College and Central State University in Ohio. She had one sibling, a sister named Louise Johnson Wesley.

Mrs. Holloman’s teaching career spanned more than 25 years and produced many dedicated and talented students. She was vocal instructor at CUNY Lehman College, Catholic University of America, Northern Virginia Community College and the University of the District of Columbia (UDC). She was the director of the Friday Morning Music Club’s International Competition for Singers. She was also the coordinator of vocal arts and a lecturer on voice in the department of music at Howard University and maintained a full private voice studio from her home up to and even during her illness.

Her devoted students came to her home for training and practice and then continued to visit and comfort her during her illness and in her latter days.

Mrs. Holloman was happily married to the late Dr. John S. Holloman for 27 years and had one daughter, Charlotte Holloman of Washington D.C.

In 1962, the family bought a summer home next to the Lagoon Pond drawbridge in Vineyard Haven.

Services for Mrs. Holloman were held on Thursday, August 6 at the Dunbarton Chapel on the campus of Howard University Law School.