Helen Pesci Wood (1911-1964)

Helen Pesci Wood, operatic soprano and arts educator, was born in Chicago and lived near here for many years. She began performing professionally in the 1940s. Over the next two decades, she appeared at Carnegie Hall and the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York, Her Majesty's Theatre in Montreal, and on the Chicago Theater of the Air. From 1950 to 1964 she was a soloist at the Colonial Williamsburg Governor’s Palace Candlelight Concerts. Wood taught voice at Lynchburg College and, in 1952, she organized the Virginia Grass Roots Opera, a troupe that traveled thousands of miles and brought the art form to communities throughout Virginia.