May Composer of the Month

Florence Price

1887-1953

Price was born in Little Rock, Arkansas to a musician and a dentist. She was always very talented at piano and organ and even gave her first performance at only four years old. By eleven, her original compositions were being publicly performed. At fourteen Price moved to Boston to study music at the New England Conservatory where she studied organ, piano pedagogy and composition. She moved back to her home in Arkansas but only stayed a short while. After witnessing and experiencing racial oppression, her family decided to leave Arkansas in hope for a safer and better life in Chicago. It was in Chicago where she made her name as a composer gaining awards and national attention for her compositions, particularly her symphony in e minor. She was the first black woman to have a piece performed by a major US symphony.

Price’s music is essentially a fusion of Romantic classical of music of the 19th century and African American spirituals. Virtually every black composer has been influenced by spirituals, and in Price’s music in particular, a hymn like spiritual melody can be heard in practically every piece she wrote. Many of her works were never published and have yet to be discovered by the public. She had lots of success writing for the piano, voice, and orchestra.