Happy Birthday to trailblazing composer Florence Price (b. April 9, 1887, in Little Rock, AR), the first African American woman composer to have a large-scale piece of music performed by a major orchestra. This happened in 1933, when the Chicago Symphony played her Symphony in E Minor. Scholar Rae Linda Brown helps us understand the significance of Price’s work. She writes, “Price’s compositions fuse Euro-American structures with elements from her own American cultural heritage, which creates an art music that, while utilizing European forms, affirms its integrity as an African American mode of expression. The musical synthesis she creates demonstrates how the African American composer could transcend received musical forms in articulating a unique American artistic and cultural self.” Outside of the music itself, Brown emphasizes that Price “sought to quietly articulate the undeniable role that black women have played in private and public African American life and culture.” Her accomplishments show that she did this brilliantly.
Recommended reading to learn more:
Citations: Rae Linda Brown, The Heart of a Woman: The Life and Music of Florence B. Price (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2020), 26-27, 37, Kindle edition; George Nelidoff, “American composer Florence Price,” photograph (location unknown, c. 1940), public domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Composer_Florence_Price_(cropped).jpg#/media/File:Composer_Florence_Price_(cropped).jpg.
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