A new brilliant sun has risen these days in the sky of singing. Miss Beula West, trained in the school of Mme. Eleonora Petrelli, 26 Van Buren Street, has revealed the charm of her voice to a fascinated world. She sang, and she conquered; and now, although she is hardly more than a girl, she is on her way to greatness, perhaps a greatness surpassing that of any singer the world has ever produced.

Miss Beula West, not yet seventeen years of age, was born in Chicago on November 14, 1887 of Swedish parents. Her father is Mr. Jonas West; her mother is Mrs. Emma Rebecka West. During her early childhood, Miss West evinced, perhaps, a certain taste for music, but did not reveal any special talent. In spite of this, Mme. Petrelli took her in hand when she [Beula West]was about ten years old and admitted her to the music school 2on Van Buren Street. Under Mme. Petrelli's able and experienced tutor-ship, the feeble and somewhat ordinary voice developed into the marvel that it is today.

When she entered Mme. Petrelli's school, Miss West had a voice range of about one octave, and she had difficulty in producing clear notes. Since then, she has made wonderful progress. Her voice has developed in power to a degree which most first-class singers do not attain until they reach the age of thirty or thirty five, and the range of her voice has increased so that she is now able to cover three octaves and three additional notes--something which neither our Jenny Lind nor our Kristina Nilsson are able to do. Miss West is at the same time a most brilliant first soprano and a contralto of the deepest and richest tone; she masters the low "f" of the contralto as easily as the high "a" of the soprano.

In her execution, Miss West is brilliant and controlled. She is an excellent vocalist, and with her splendid voice she combines a delivery full of feeling, giving evidence of her true poetic understanding of the spirit of the 3text. Her nuances and her mimicry are magnificent. Very rarely does one encounter a voice as colorful as that of Miss West. Her voice unites the tone color of a soprano with that of an alto. Her singing contains the trills of the nightingale, and in the higher reaches, her singing leaves one with the impression of a string of glittering pearls issuing from her vibrating lips.

Mme. Petrelli has kept her pupil in the background until this moment, simply in order to produce an all the more greater sensation on her present appearance. On certain occasions, however, the young diva has appeared, and on those occasions, music critics have spoken of her in the most flattering terms. When hardly fourteen years old, she sang, one evening, at the Auditorium, the largest theater and concert hall in Chicago or, for that matter, in the world. A music critic said, after her appearance on that occasion, that even at that time her voice possessed great volume; that her notes came forth clear as silver and pure as gold; that, standing outside the theater, he could easily distinguish the words in the numbers she sang.

Beula West fascinates the public with her singing. Although she may not, perhaps, be called beautiful, yet she possesses a very attractive personality, and this is next to indispensable to win the public. Her ways are pleasant, and her expressive face is framed in a richness of blond hair. Her demeanor is natural and modest; her talents have not made her proud, although she is fully determined to develop these talents to the utmost. Some day, her name will resound throughout the civilized world; the glory of her fame as a singer will eclipse the renown of our great choruses. We, as well as all the music critics who were present to hear Miss West, predict that the happiness of success will be hers in the world of song, and it gives us great pleasure to know that once more the Swedish name will be celebrated and honored throughout the world because of one of the children of our country. Not, as of old, through sword and cannon and the slaughter of war, but in the noble work of peace, through high achievement in the art of arts--singing.