Meet Florence Price

So many of the complexities of what it means to be American intersect in the music of Florence Price (1887-1953). No stranger to the professional, artistic and personal obstacles posed by sexism and racism, this Black woman’s compositions are a thrilling synthesis of social and cultural influences, as well as a testament to her perseverance, intellect and passion.

Her composition teacher at the New England Conservatory was its director, George Whitefield Chadwick, one of the “Boston Six” composers (Amy Beach and Edward MacDowell also among them) who were striving toward a distinctly American compositional style. Though the influence of Germanic Romanticism is audible in their music, these composers showed America and the world that the USA could hold its own musically. Steeped in this mindset when she graduated from NEC with top honors in 1906, Price also drew deeply from the well of African-American musical traditions. Her genius expresses itself in a fusion of styles, creating a musical language that is lyrical, sophisticated, energetic, and distinctly American in its sound.

In 1933, the Chicago Symphony performed her Symphony in E Minor, probably the first time a symphony by a Black woman was played by a major American orchestra. This magnificent work is featured on an album often heard on WETA Classical which won the 2022 Grammy Award for Best Orchestral Performance — Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra.

Price’s story includes a posthumous miracle: the astoundingly fortunate rescue of a trove of her manuscripts from an abandoned house in 2009. Through a combination of good intentions and extraordinary good luck, a substantial body of this excellent composer’s work was rescued from oblivion. They include works like her Violin Concerto No. 2. There is no evidence of a commission for this work. She appears to have composed it simply because she wanted to, because she believed in herself and the value of her unique voice. Black History Month invites and challenges us not only to contemplate why treasures like these might have been sitting abandoned in an attic for a half century, but to bring that wrongly neglected genius to light.