years old. By the time she was twelve, she had already started accompanying for her mother's concerts. When she was a teenager, she started attending the Los Angeles High School as the first black student to do so. There, she studied music theory with ancient and modern languages and participated in the school's music program, gaining accolades for her performances as a pianist. She decided to become a singer, however, when she first watched a production of Aida at age fifteen. "I was impressed by the opera as nothing had ever moved me before. I sat breathlessly watching the artists, and as the opera progressed, a desire (an impossible desire, so it seemed at the time) took possession of me. I wanted to sing the title role in Aida," she said in an interview with Ruby Goodwin. Consequently, she joined her school's glee club, becoming the first black soloist to join it. By this time, she had already begun her voice training under Gloria Mayne Windsor, a soprano who performed globally. Notably, she accompanied Madam Emma Azalia Hackley, a renowned black soprano and founder of the Colored Women's League, at a concert in Los Angeles at age sixteen. Seeing her talent, Hackley encouraged her to continue her voice training. As a result, she continued her voice training under mentors like Oscar Saenger, John B. Miller, and Herman Devries. Attesting to her talent, Saenger was quoted saying, "her voice [was] a beautiful soprano, which she [used] with consummate skill," in Negro Musicians and Their Music by Maud Cuney Hare, an African American musician and musicologist. She also performed with Eusebio Concialdi, an Italian baritone, who encouraged her to specifically pursue studying Italian operatic roles. Due to her talent, she was selected as the soloist for commencement exercises at her school, becoming the first black student to partake in a high school commencement program in LA. She began her college education at the University of Southern California College of Music, where she specialized in oratorio. Career In 1915, Florence left college during her senior year and started touring with Hahn's Jubilee Singers all over the U.S. and Canada. Here she also met her first husband, Wendell P. Talbert, a Hann's pianist at the time. Through her work with Hahn's Jubilee Singers, she also had the opportunity to interact with eminent musicians like Noble Sissle. By the end of 1915, she had separated