Florence Price


Florence Beatrice Price was an American classical composer, pianist, organist and music teacher. Born in Little Rock, Arkansas, Price was educated at the New England Conservatory of Music, and was active in Chicago from 1927 until her death in 1953. Price is noted as the first African-American woman to be recognized as a symphonic composer, and the first to have a composition played by a major orchestra. Price composed over 300 works: four symphonies, four concertos, as well as choral works, art songs, chamber music and music for solo instruments. In 2009, a substantial collection of her works and papers was found in her abandoned summer home.

Biography

Early life and education

Florence Beatrice Smith was born to Florence and James H. Smith on April 9, 1887, in Little Rock, Arkansas, one of three children in a mixed-race family. Her father was the only African-American dentist in the city, and her mother was a music teacher who guided Florence's early musical training. Despite racial issues of the era, her family was well respected and did well within their community. She gave her first piano performance at the age of four and had her first composition published at the age of 11.
She attended school at a Catholic convent, and in 1901, at age 14, she graduated as valedictorian of her class. In 1902, after high school, she enrolled in the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, Massachusetts, with a double major in organ and piano teaching. Initially, she passed as Mexican to avoid racial discrimination against African Americans, listing her hometown as "Pueblo, Mexico". At the Conservatory, she studied composition and counterpoint with composers George Chadwick and Frederick Converse. Also while there, Smith wrote her first string trio and symphony. She graduated in 1906 with honors, and with both an artist diploma in organ and a teaching certificate.

Career

In 1910, Smith returned to Arkansas, where she taught briefly before moving to Atlanta, Georgia. There she became the head of the music department of what is now Clark Atlanta University, a historically Black college. In 1912, she married Thomas J. Price, a lawyer. She gave up her teaching position and moved back to Little Rock, Arkansas, where he had his practice and had two daughters. She could not find work in the by now racially segregated town.
After a series of racial incidents in Little Rock, particularly a lynching of a Black man in 1927, the Price family decided to leave. Like many Black families living in the Deep South, they moved north in the Great Migration to escape Jim Crow conditions, and settled in Chicago, a major industrial city.
There Florence Price began a new and fulfilling period in her composition career; she was part of the Chicago Black Renaissance. She studied composition, orchestration, and organ with the leading teachers in the city, including Arthur Olaf Andersen, Carl Busch, Wesley La Violette, and Leo Sowerby. She 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, University of Chicago, and American Conservatory of Music, studying languages and liberal arts subjects as well as music.
In 1930, an important early success occurred at the twelfth annual convention of the National Association of Negro Musicians, when pianist-composer Margaret Bonds premiered Price's Fantasie nègre in its original version titled "Negro Fantasy". Of this performance, Carl Ditton wrote for the Associated Negro Press:

The surprise of the evening was a most effective composition by Mrs. F. B. Price, entitled 'A Negro Phantasy', played by the talented Chicago pianiste, Margaret Bonds. The entire association could well afford to recommend this number to all advanced pianists.

In 1931, financial struggles and abuse by her husband resulted in Price getting a divorce at age 44. She became a single mother to her two daughters. To make ends meet, she worked as an organist for silent film screenings and composed songs for radio ads under a pen name. During this time, Price lived with friends. She eventually moved in with her student and friend, Margaret Bonds, also a Black pianist and composer. This friendship connected Price with writer Langston Hughes and contralto Marian Anderson, both prominent figures in the art world who aided in Price's future success as a composer. Together, Price and Bonds 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 prize with her Symphony in E minor, and third for her Piano Sonata, earning her a $500 prize.
Early in 1933 leading Arts advocate Maude Roberts George, president of the Chicago Music Association, music critic of The Chicago Defender and eventual national president of the National Association of Negro Musicians, paid $250 for Price's First Symphony to be included in a program devoted to "The Negro in Music", with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Frederick Stock, as part of the Century of Progress World's Fair. Although this concert, like the Fair in general, was unmistakably tainted by the racism that characterized Chicago and the U.S. in general in the 1930s, George's underwriting made Price the first African-American woman to have her music played by a major U.S. orchestra. Later in that same season the Illinois Host House of the World's Fair devoted an entire program to Price and her music, a striking invitation given that Price had adopted Illinois as her home state only five years earlier.
In 1934, Price represented her class at the Chicago Musical College, performing her Concerto in D minor for Piano and Orchestra as part of the 1934 commencement program. This performance was met with critical acclaim. She would go on to perform this Concerto at the National Association of Negro Musicians in Pittsburgh, gaining further critical praise from The Pittsburgh Press and the Pittsburgh Sun Telegraph. The Telegraph specifically praised Price's blending of her African American culture into her work, calling it "real American music."
During the 1930s, a number of Price's other orchestral works were played by the Works Progress Administration Symphony Orchestra of Detroit and the Women's Symphony Orchestra of Chicago. On October 12, 1934, the Women's Symphony Orchestra of Chicago, a well known orchestra which uplifted women composers and performers, performed the Concerto. This began a long term association between the orchestra and Price. This partnership helped Price to gain recognition, and her Concerto in D minor would go on to be performed by other major symphonies within her lifetime, including the Chicago symphony and the Michigan Works Progress Administration Orchestra.
In 1940, Price was inducted into the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers for her work as a composer.
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 Marian Anderson, who performed them on a regular basis.

Personal life

In 1912, Price married prominent Arkansas attorney Thomas J. Price upon returning to Arkansas from Atlanta. Together, they had two daughters and a son: Florence, Edith, and Thomas Jr. The Price children were raised in Chicago.
Florence Price divorced Thomas Price in January 1931, and on February 14, 1931, she married the widower Pusey Dell Arnett, an insurance agent and former baseball player for the Chicago Unions some thirteen years her senior. She and Arnett were separated by April 1934; they apparently never divorced.
On June 3, 1953, Price died from a stroke in Chicago, Illinois, at the age of 66.

Legacy and honors

In 1964, the Chicago Public Schools opened Florence B. Price Elementary School at 4351 South Drexel Boulevard in the North Kenwood neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois in her honor. Price Elementary's student body was predominately African-American. The school operated from 1964 until the school district decided to phase it out in 2011 due to poor academic performance, which ultimately led to its closing in 2013. The school housed a piano owned by Price. The school building currently houses a local church as of 2019.
In February 2019, The University of Arkansas Honors College held a concert honoring Price. In October 2019, the International Florence Price Festival announced that its inaugural gathering celebrating Price's music and legacy would take place at the University of Maryland School of Music in August 2020. From January 4 to 8, 2021, Price was the BBC Radio 3's Composer of the Week.
Following her death, much of her work was overshadowed as new musical styles emerged that fit the changing tastes of modern society. According to some critics, Florence Price’s Symphony in E minor, performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1933, represented a pivotal moment in American classical music, breaking the race barrier for African American composers in major symphonic venues. Price’s achievement paved the way for greater representation, acceptance, and visibility of African American artistry within the classical music tradition, expanding opportunities for artists who had previously faced systemic exclusion from mainstream orchestras and concert halls.
Some of her work was lost, but as more African-American and female composers gained attention for their works, so did Price. In 2001, the Women's Philharmonic created an album of some of her work.
In 2011, pianist Karen Walwyn and The New Black Repertory Ensemble performed Price's Concerto in One Movement and Symphony in E minor.
In February 2025, a crater on the planet Mercury was named in her honor.

Discovery of manuscripts in 2009

In 2009, a substantial collection of her works and papers was found in an abandoned dilapidated house on the outskirts of St. Anne, Illinois, which Price had used as a summer home. These consisted of dozens of her scores, including her two violin concertos and her fourth symphony. As Alex Ross stated in The New Yorker in February 2018, "not only did Price fail to enter the canon; a large quantity of her music came perilously close to obliteration. That run-down house in St. Anne is a potent symbol of how a country can forget its cultural history."
Three settings of her work Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight were rediscovered in 2009; a setting for orchestra, organ, chorus, and soloists was premiered on April 12, 2019, by the Du Bois Orchestra and Lyricora Chamber Choir in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
In November 2018, the music publisher G. Schirmer announced that it had acquired the exclusive worldwide rights to Florence Price's complete catalog.
In 2021, classical pianist Lara Downes initiated a project, Rising Sun Music, to draw attention to the influence of composers from a diversity of backgrounds upon American Classical music, assisted by producers such as Adam Abeshouse, to release newly recorded works of composers such as Price and Harry Burleigh, whose importance often has been lost in historical accounts of the development in the field.
With the 2022 installment in the Catalyst Quartet's ongoing Uncovered series focusing on the music of Black composers comes nearly two hours' worth of Price's chamber music. "The most substantial piece, Price's A-minor Quintet for Piano and Strings got its first recording just last year, courtesy of the Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective. Like that one, this performance impresses for its technical and expressive excellence: everything's beautifully balanced and comes to life just as it should." Also from artsfuse.org's Jonathan Blumhofer: "Taken together, this is an album that's at once musically significant but, more than that, thoroughly enjoyable. How tragic that, largely on account of her race and gender, Price's music was almost erased. Yet how happy it is that revivals do happen – and how exciting that, thanks to the advocacy of groups like the Catalysts and musicians like Cann, we're seeing a deserving composer finally taking her place in the American canon."

Reception

Price was well received during her time, and she was particularly celebrated in Chicago. However, even her positive reviews were influenced by the common belief of the time that many women were performers, and a woman composer was a novelty. As a result, several of Price's reviews focused more on her performing abilities than her compositional skills.
She was cognizant of these issues. When writing to a composer she admired, Price prefaced her work with, "I have two handicaps - those of sex and race." She addressed these facts upfront in order to request a review of her work that was free of sexism or racism. Despite these challenges, Price received praise for the blending of both her traditional western education and African American culture in her music, and was seen as a pioneer for both her gender and race.
Florence Price’s rediscovery in the twenty-first century has led to a major reevaluation of her importance in American classical music. Scholars and performers have emphasized how she blended African American musical traditions—such as spirituals and dance rhythms—with European symphonic forms, creating a uniquely American sound. Her revival has inspired new performances and recordings by orchestras such as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Minnesota Orchestra. Contemporary composers, including Jessie Montgomery and Valerie Coleman, have cited Price as an influence for the way she integrated themes of race, heritage, and spirituality into classical music. Her renewed recognition has also prompted broader conversations about equity and representation in concert programming and the historical exclusion of women and Black composers from the Western classical canon. Price’s legacy continues to shape how audiences and institutions understand the diversity of American music history.

Works

Composition style

Even though her training was steeped in European tradition, Price's music is in an American idiom. The strong influence of the composition style of Antonín Dvořák is often noticeable, e.g., in her first violin concerto and more broadly in the two composers' lavish orchestrations of reworked folk melodies. As a Christian, she frequently used the music of the African-American church as material for her arrangements. At the urging of her mentor George Whitefield Chadwick, Price began to incorporate elements of African-American spirituals, emphasizing the rhythm and syncopation of the spirituals rather than just using the text. The melody in her first symphony was inspired by African-American spirituals but solidly rooted in instrumental writing. Compared with Dvorak's 9th symphony, the third movement is titled Juba Dance. This antebellum folk dance had already inspired European art music composers in its later manifestation the cakewalk, such as Debussy's "Golliwogg's Cakewalk" in Children's Corner.
Florence Price composed numerous works: four symphonies, four concertos, as well as choral works, art songs, and music for chamber and solo instruments, organ anthems, piano pieces, spiritual arrangements, a piano concerto, and two violin concertos. In the program notes for her piano piece Three Little Negro Dances, Price wrote: "In all types of Negro music, rhythm is of preeminent importance. In the dance, it is a compelling, onward-sweeping force that tolerates no interruption... All phases of truly Negro activity—whether work or play, singing or praying—are more than apt to take on a rhythmic quality."

Symphonies

Concertos

  • Piano Concerto in D minor
  • Violin Concerto No. 1 in D major
  • Violin Concerto No. 2 in D minor
  • Rhapsody/Fantasie for piano and orchestra

Other orchestral works

Ethiopia's Shadow in America Mississippi River Suite ; although labelled as a "suite", the work is cast in one continuous large-scale movement, in which several famous Mississippi river songs are quoted, such as "Go Down, Moses", "Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen" and "Deep River".Chicago Suite Colonial Dance Symphony
  • Concert Overture No. 1 ; based on the spiritual "Sinner, Please Don't Let This Harvest Pass"
  • Concert Overture No. 2 ; based on three spirituals The Oak, tone poem ; Songs of the Oak, tone poem ;Suite of Negro Dances ; also referred to as Suite of Dances
  • ''Dances in the Canebrakes''

Choral

  • "The Moon Bridge", SSA, pf ; in Florence B. Price: Two Moon Songs for Women's Chorus and Piano, ed. John Michael Cooper
  • "The New Moon", SSAA, pf duet, in Florence B. Price: Two Moon Songs for Women's Chorus and Piano, ed. John Michael Cooper
  • "The Wind and the Sea", SSAATTBB, pf, str qt, 1934;
  • "Night", SSA, pf
  • "Witch of the Meadow", SSA ;
  • "Sea Gulls", female chorus, fl, cl, vn, va, vc, pf, by 1951;
  • "Nature's Magic", SSA ;
  • "Song for Snow", SATB ;
  • "Abraham Lincoln walks at midnight", 2 versions: first version for SATB soli, ch, orch, org ; revised version for SATB soli, ch, pf, ed. John Michael Cooper
  • "After the 1st and 6th Commandments", SATB;
  • "Communion Service", F, SATB, org;
  • "Nod", TTBB;
  • Resignation, SATB;
  • "Song of Hope" ;
  • "Spring Journey", SSA, str qt

Solo vocal (art songs and spirituals, all with piano)

  • "Don't You Tell Me No"
  • "Brown Arms ", in Florence B. Price: Seven Songs on Texts of African American Poets, ed. John Michael Cooper.
  • "Dreamin' Town", 1934
  • 4 Songs, B-Bar, 1935
  • "My Dream", 1935
  • Four Negro Songs, March 20–21, 1935, in Seven Songs on Texts of African American Poets, ed. John Michael Cooper. 1. Easy-goin', 2. Summah Night, 3. Dat's My Gal, or The Photograph, 4. Goo'-bye, Jinks.
  • "Four Songs" from The Weary Blues : "My Dream", "Songs to the Dark Virgin", "Ardella", "Dream Ships"."
  • "Dawn's Awakening", 1936;
  • "God Gives Me You", in Florence B. Price: Seventeen Art Songs and Spirituals, ed. John Michael Cooper
  • "Fantasy in Purple"
  • "Life" in Florence B. Price: Seventeen Art Songs and Spirituals, ed. John Michael Cooper
  • "After the Winter" in Florence B. Price: Seventeen Art Songs and Spirituals, ed. John Michael Cooper
  • "Lethe" in Florence B. Price: Seventeen Art Songs and Spirituals, ed. John Michael Cooper Monologue for the Working Class
  • "My Little Dreams in Florence B. Price: Seventeen Art Songs and Spirituals, ed. John Michael Cooper
  • "Feet o' Jesus"
  • "Hold Fast to Dreams", 1945Lullaby , in Florence B. Price: Seven Songs on Texts of African American Poets, ed. John Michael Cooper.
  • "Night"
  • "Out of the South Blew a Wind"
  • "Beyond the Years", in Florence B. Price: Seventeen Art Songs and Spirituals, ed. John Michael Cooper
  • My Soul and I", in Florence B. Price: Seven Songs on Texts of African American Poets, ed. John Michael Cooper
  • "Before This Time another Year", in Florence B. Price: Seventeen Art Songs and Spirituals, ed. John Michael Cooper
  • "Rhapsody" in Florence B. Price: Seventeen Art Songs and Spirituals, ed. John Michael Cooper
  • "An April Day"
  • "The Envious Wren"
  • "Forever"
  • "The Glory of the Day was in her Face"
  • "The Heart of a Woman", 1941
  • "Love-in-a-Mist"
  • "Nightfall" ; "Resignation", also arr. chorus;
  • "Song of the Open Road; Sympathy" ;
  • "To my Little Son" ;
  • "Travel's End", 1933
  • "Judgement Day".
  • "Some o' These Days"
  • about 70 other works

Instrumental chamber music

Andante con espressione
  • String Quartet in G major
  • Fantasie in G Minor for Violin and Piano
  • String Quartet in A minor
  • Piano Quintet in E minor
  • Piano Quintet in A minor Five Folksongs in Counterpoint for String Quartet
  • Fantasy in F-sharp Minor for Violin and Piano Moods, for Flute, Clarinet and Piano Spring Journey, for 2 violins, viola, cello, double bass and piano

Works for piano

Tarantella Impromptu No. 1 Valsette Mignon Preludes : No. 1 Allegro moderato; No. 2 Andantino cantabile; No. 3 Allegro molto; No. 4 Allegretto con tenerezza; No. 5 AllegroAt the Cotton Gin ; published by G. Schirmer, 1928': Little Truants ; No. 2. Two Busy Little Hands; No. 3. Hard Problems ; Tittle Tattle; In Romance Land ; Hilda's Waltz.Pensive Mood Scherzo in G Song without Words in G Major Meditation Fantasie nègre ; based on the spiritual "Sinner, please don't let this harvest pass".On a Quiet Lake Waltz of the Spring Maid Barcarolle His Dream Cotton Dance Fantasie nègre No. 2 in G minor Fantasie nègre No. 3 in F minor Fantasie nègre No. 4 in B minor Song without Words in A Major
  • Piano Sonata in E minor Child Asleep Etude 3 Little Negro Dances : Rabbit Foot, Hoe Cake, Ticklin' Toes. Also arranged for concert band ; for two pianos ; and for orchestra Tecumseh Scenes in Tin Can Alley : "The Huckster", "Children at Play", "Night"3 Sketches for little pianists Arkansas Jitter Bayou Dance Dance of the Cotton Blossoms Summer Moon Down a Southern Lane Joy in June On a Summer's Eve Rocking chair Thumbnail Sketches of a Day in the Life of a Washerwoman. Two versions. First version consists of "Morning", "Dreaming at the Washtub", "A Gay Moment", and "Evening Shadows"; second version omits "Dreaming at the Washtub". Rowing: Little Concert Waltz .
  • ' .Remembrance Village Scenes : "Church Spires in Moonlight", "A Shaded Lane", "The Park"Your Hands in Mine
  • : "Levee at Noontime – Barcarolle" ; "Little Miss Perky" ; "Smile, Smile!" ; "Fairy Fun " .Clouds Cotton Dance 2 Fantasies on Folk Tunes In Sentimental Mood Whim Wham Placid Lake Memories of Dixieland ; won Holstein Award, 1947Sketches in Sepia Rock-a-bye : To a Yellow Rose, To a White Rose, To a Red Rose To a Brown Leaf First Romance Waltzing on a Sunbeam Snapshots : I. Lake Mirror, II. Moon behind a Cloud, III. Flame Until We Meet Dances in the Canebrakes ; also orchestrated
  • about 70 teaching pieces
Undated:
  • I'm Troubled in My MindPieces to a Certain Pair of Newlyweds
  • ''Three Miniature Portraits of Uncle Ned''

Arrangements of spirituals

  • "My soul's been anchored in de Lord", 1v, pf, arr. 1v, orch, arr. chorus, pf;
  • "Nobody knows the trouble I've Seen ;
  • "Some o' These Days", arrangement for voice and piano, date uncertain.
  • Two Traditional Negro Spirituals, 1 v, pf : "I Am Bound for the Kingdom" and "I'm Workin' on My Buildin 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.
  • "Were you there when they crucified my Lord?", pf ;
  • "I am bound for the kingdom", 1v, pf ;
  • "I'm workin' on my building", 1v, pf job at Florida
  • "Heav'n bound soldier", male chorus, 1949 ;
Undated:
  • "Joshua Fit de Battle of Jericho"
  • "Peter, Go Ring dem Bells" Variations on a Folksong "Peter, go ring dem bells)", org ;
  • "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
  • *Manuscripts of approximately 40 songs in US-PHu ; other manuscripts in private collections and archives at the University of Arkansas and the University of Florida.

Works for organ

Adoration in The Organ Portfolio vol. 15/86, Dayton OH: Lorenz Publishing Co., 34–35.
  • Andante, July 24, 1952
  • Andantino con espressione,
  • Allegretto
  • Cantilena March 10, 1951CapriceDainty Lass, by November 19, 1936Echoes of a Prayer Festal March
  • First Sonata for Organ, 1927The Hour Glass . paired with Retrospection as No. 1Hour of Peace or Hour of Contentment or Gentle Heart, November 16, 1951In Quiet Mood, New York: Galaxy Music Corp, 1951 Little MelodyLittle PastoraleOffertory in The Organ Portfolio vol. 17/130. Dayton OH: Lorenz Publishing Co., 1953O Solemn Thought, by July 14, 1950
  • Passacaglia and Fugue, January 1927A Pleasant Thought, December 10, 1951
  • Prelude and Fantasie, by 1942Retrospection, paired with The Hour Glass as No. 2
  • Steal Away to Jesus, by November 19, 1936
  • Suite No. 1, by April 6, 1942Memory Mist
  • Tempo moderato, seriously damaged and possibly incomplete]Variations on a Folksong
  • *Principal publishers: Fischer, Gamble-Hinged, Handy, McKinley, Presser

Works for violin (with piano accompaniment)

  • Andante Con EspressioneDeserted GardenElfentanz
  • Fantasie in G minor for Violin and Piano

Adaptations

Orchestral works

Adoration, arranged for orchestra by Kai Johannes Polzhofer

Additional sources

  • Ammer, Christine. Unsung: A History of Women in American Music. Portland Oregon, Amadeus Press, 2001
  • Brown, Rae Linda. . Accessed March 15, 2007.
  • Brown, Rae Linda. "William Grant Still, Florence Price, and William Dawson: Echoes of the Harlem Renaissance", in Samuel A. Floyd, Jr, Black Music in the Harlem Renaissance, Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1990, pp. 71–86.
  • Ege, Samantha. "Florence Price and the Politics of Her Existence", Kapralova Society Journal 16, no. 1 : 1–10.
  • , Biography.com. Retrieved December 1, 2014.
  • Mashego, Shana Thomas. Music from the Soul of Woman: The Influence of the African American Presbyterian and Methodist Traditions on the Classical Compositions of Florence Price and Dorothy Rudd Moore. DMA, The University of Arizona, 2010.
  • Perkins, Holly Ellistine. Biographies of Black Composers and Songwriters; A Supplementary Textbook. Iowa: Wm. C. Brown Publishers, 1990.
  • , Encyclopedia of World Biography. 2006. Encyclopedia.com. December 1, 2014.
  • Slonimsky, Nicolas, The Concise Edition of Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, 8th edn, New York: Schirmer, p. 791.