HALIFAX -- Nova Scotia's government is adding $50,000 to a scholarship endowment that honours the African Nova Scotian singer Portia White.

The funding will help Bravura Nova Scotia award - an annual scholarship of $2,000 to a promising student of the Maritime Conservatory of Performing Arts.

White was a contralto who achieved fame as a classical concert and gospel singer in the 1940s and 1950s.

She became the first Black Canadian concert singer to win approval across North America, despite racial barriers to her career.