Career

Florence Price is considered the first black woman in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 to be recognized as a symphonic composer. Even though her training was steeped in European tradition, Price’s music consists of mostly the American idiom and reveals her Southern roots. Her mother, a soprano and pianist, carefully guided her early musical training, and at age fourteen, she enrolled in the New England Conservatory of Music

New England Conservatory of Music

The New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, Massachusetts, is the oldest independent school of music in the United States.The conservatory is home each year to 750 students pursuing undergraduate and graduate studies along with 1400 more in its Preparatory School as well as the School of...

 with a major in piano and organ. She studied composition and counterpoint

Counterpoint

In music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more voices that are independent in contour and rhythm and are harmonically interdependent . It has been most commonly identified in classical music, developing strongly during the Renaissance and in much of the common practice period,...

 with George Chadwick

George Whitefield Chadwick

George Whitefield Chadwick was an American composer. Along with Horatio Parker, Amy Beach, Arthur Foote, and Edward MacDowell, he was a representative composer of what can be called the New England School of American composers of the late 19th century—the generation before Charles Ives...

 and Frederick Converse

Frederick Converse

Frederick Shepherd Converse , was an American composer of classical music.-Life and career:Converse was born in Newton, Massachusetts, the son of Edmund Winchester and Charlotte Augusta Converse. His father was a successful merchant, and president of the National Tube Works and the Conanicut Mills...

, writing her first string trio and symphony in college, and graduating in 1907 with honors and both an artist diploma in organ and a teaching certificate.

She taught in Arkansas

Arkansas

Arkansas is a state located in the southern region of the United States. Its name is an Algonquian name of the Quapaw Indians. Arkansas shares borders with six states , and its eastern border is largely defined by the Mississippi River...

 from 1907–1927 and married Thomas J. Price, an attorney, in 1912. After a series of racial incidents in Little Rock, particularly a lynching that took place in 1927, the family moved to Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

 where Price began a new and fulfilling period in her compositional career. She studied composition, orchestration, and organ with the leading teachers in the city including Arthur Olaf Anderson, Carl Busch, Wesley La Violette, and Leo Sowerby

Leo Sowerby

Leo Sowerby , American composer and church musician, was the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for music in 1946, and was often called the “Dean of American church music” in the early to mid 20th century.-Biography:...

 and published four pieces for piano in 1928. While in Chicago Price was at various times enrolled at the Chicago Musical College, Chicago Teacher’s College, Chicago University, and American Conservatory of Music

American Conservatory of Music

The American Conservatory of Music was a major American school of music founded in 1886 by John James Hattstaedt . The conservatory was incorporated as an Illinois non-profit corporation. It was located in Chicago until 1991 when its Board of Trustees — chaired by Frederic Wilbur Hickman...

, studying languages and liberal arts subjects as well as music.

Her friendship with the young composer, Margaret Bonds

Margaret Bonds

Margaret Allison Bonds was an American composer and pianist. One of the first black composers and performers to gain recognition in the United States, she is best remembered today for her frequent collaborations with Langston Hughes.-Life:...

, resulted in a teacher-student relationship and the two women began to achieve national recognition for their compositions and performances. In 1932, both Price and Bonds submitted compositions for the Wanamaker Foundation Awards. Price won first and second place with her Symphony in E minor, and for her Piano Sonata. Bonds came in first place in the song category, with a song entitled Sea Ghost. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra

Chicago Symphony Orchestra

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Chicago, Illinois. It is one of the five American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five". Founded in 1891, the Symphony makes its home at Orchestra Hall in Chicago and plays a summer season at the Ravinia Festival...

, conducted by Frederick Stock

Frederick Stock

Frederick Stock was a German conductor and composer.-Biography:...

, premiered the winning composition, Symphony In E Minor on June 15, 1933. A number of Price’s other orchestral works were also played by the WPA Symphony Orchestra of Detroit and the Chicago Women’s Symphony. Price wrote other extended works for orchestra, chamber works, art songs, works for violin, organ anthems, piano pieces, spiritual arrangements, four symphonies, three piano concertos, and a violin concerto. Some of her more popular works are: Three Little Negro Dances, Songs to a Dark Virgin, My Soul's Been Anchored in de Lord for piano or orchestra and voice, and Moon Bridge. Price made considerable use of characteristic black melodies and rhythms in many of her works. Her “Concert Overture on Negro Spirituals,” “Symphony in E minor,” and “Negro Folksongs in Counterpoint” for string quartet, all serve as excellent examples of her idiomatic work.

Deeply religious, Price frequently used the music of the black church as material for her arrangements. In 1949, Price published two of her spiritual arrangements, “I Am Bound for the Kingdom,” and “I’m Workin’ on My Buildin’,” and dedicated them to the black contralto Marian Anderson

Marian Anderson

Marian Anderson was an African-American contralto and one of the most celebrated singers of the twentieth century...

, who performed them on a regular basis. Price died in Chicago on June 3, 1953.

Orchestral

• Symphony no.1 in e minor, 1931–2;
• Ethiopia's Shadow in America, 1932;
• Mississippi River, sym., 1934;
• Pianoforte Concerto in d minor, perf. 1934;
• Symphony no.2 in g minor;
• Symphony no.3 in c minor, 1940, US-NH;
• Symphony no.4 in d minor;
• Violin Concerto no.2 in D major, 1952;
• Chicago Suite;
• Colonial Dance, sym.;
• Dances in the Canebrakes [arr. of pf piece];
• 2 concert ovs. [based on spirituals];
• Ov. ‘Sinner please don't let this harvest pass’;
• Rhapsody, pf, orch;
• Songs of the Oak, tone poem;
• Suite of Negro Dances

Choral

• The Moon Bridge (M.R. Gamble), SSA, 1930;
• The New Moon, SSAA, 2 pf, 1930;
• The Wind and the Sea (P.L. Dunbar), SSAATTBB, pf, str qt, 1934;
• Witch of the Meadow (Gamble), SSA (1947);
• Sea Gulls, female chorus, fl, cl, vn, va, vc, pf, by 1951;
• Nature's Magic (Gamble), SSA (1953);
• Song for Snow (E. Coatsworth), SATB (1957);
• Abraham Lincoln walks at midnight (V. Lindsay), mixed vv, orch, org;
• After the 1st and 6th Commandments, SATB;
• Communion Service, F, SATB, org;
• Nod (W. de la Mare), TTBB; Resignation (Price), SATB;
• Song of Hope (Price);
• Spring Journey, SSA, str qt

Solo vocal (all with pf)

• Dreamin' Town (Dunbar), 1934;
• 4 Songs, B-Bar, 1935;
• My Dream (Hughes), 1935;
• Dawn's Awakening (J.J. Burke), 1936;
• Songs to the Dark Virgin (L. Hughes), (1941);
• Hold Fast to Dreams (Hughes), 1945;
• Night (L.C. Wallace), (1946);
• Out of the South blew a Wind (F.C. Woods), (1946);
• An April Day (J.F. Cotter), (1949);
• The Envious Wren (A. and P. Carey);
• Fantasy in Purple (Hughes);
• Feet o' Jesus (Hughes);
• Forever (Dunbar);
• The Glory of the Day was in her Face (J.W. Johnson);
• The Heart of a Woman (G.D. Johnson); Love-in-a-Mist (Gamble);
• Nightfall (Dunbar); Resignation (Price), also arr. chorus;
• Song of the Open Road; Sympathy (Dunbar);
• To my Little Son (J.J. Davis);
• Travel's End (M.F. Hoisington); c90 other works

Chamber music / Works for brass band

• Suite for Brasses, c1949;
• Moods, fl, cl, pf, 1953;
• Negro Folksongs in Counterpoint, str qt;
• Spring Journey, 2 vn, 2 va, 2 vc, db, pf;
• pieces for vn, pf; 2 pf qnts;
• other works for str qt

Works for Pianoforte

• At the Cotton Gin (1928);
• Sonata, e (1932);
• 3 Little Negro Dances, 1933, arr. sym. band, 1939, arr. 2 pf (1949);
• Bayou Dance, 1938;
• Dance of the Cotton Blossoms, 1938;
• Dances in the Canebrakes (1953);
• c10 other works,
• c70 teaching pieces

Organ

• Impromptu, 1941;
• Adoration (1951);
• Evening Song, 1951;
• In Quiet Mood, 1951;
• Passacaglia and Fugue;
• Retrospection (An Elf on a Moonbeam);
• Retrospection (1995);
• Sonata no.1, 1927;
• Suite no.1 (1993); Festal March (1995);
• Offertory (1995);
• other works

Arrangements of spirituals

• Fantasie negre, e, 1929 (Sinner, please don't let this harvest pass);
• My soul's been anchored in de Lord, 1v, pf (1937), arr. 1v, orch, arr. chorus, pf;
• Nobody knows the trouble I see, pf (1938);
• Were you there when they crucified my Lord?, pf (1942);
• I am bound for the kingdom, 1v, pf (1948);
• I'm workin' on my building, 1v, pf (1948);
• Heav'n bound soldier, male chorus, 1949 [2 arrs.];
• Variations on a Folksong (Peter, go ring dem bells), org (1996);
• I couldn't hear nobody pray, SSAATTBB;
• Save me, Lord, save me, 1v, pf;
• Trouble done come my way, 1v, pf;
• 12 other works, 1v, pf

• • MSS of 40 songs in US-PHu; other MSS in private collections; papers and duplicate MSS in U. of Arkansas, Fayetteville
  • Principal publishers: Fischer, Gamble-Hinged, Handy, McKinley, Presser

Discography

• Art Songs by American Composers / Yolanda Marcoulescou-Stern. Gasparo Records, 1993.
• Black Diamonds/ Althea Waites. Cambria Records, 1993.
• Florence Price: The Oak, Mississippi River Suite, and Symphony no.3/ Women’s Philharmonic. Koch International Classics, 2001.
• Lucille Field Sings Songs by American Women Composers. Cambria Records, 2006.
• Negro Speaks of Rivers
  The Negro Speaks of Rivers
  "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" is a poem by American writer Langston Hughes.-Composition and publication history:Langston Hughes wrote the poem on an envelope while traveling by train to Mexico as he crossed the Mississippi River to St. Louis. "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" was first published in The...
  
   /Odekhiren Amaize, David Korevaar. Musician’s Showcase, 2000.
• Chicago Renaissance Woman: Florence B. Price Organ Works; Calcante CAL 014 1997

External links

• Florence Beatrice Smith Price (1888-1953), Correspondence, musical scores, and other papers, 1906-1975, University of Arkansas, Special Collections, Manuscript Collection 988: