Feisty Female Friday: Florence Price

The FFF this week is Florence Price.

Florence was an American classical composer, pianist, organist, and music teacher. She is the first African American woman to be recognized as a symphonic composer and to have a composition played by a major orchestra. Florence composed over 300 works including symphonies, concertos, choral works, art songs, chamber music, and music for solo instruments.

Florence was born in ARK, gave her first piano performance at the age of four, and had her first composition published at the age of 11. She attended NEC and graduated with an artist diploma in organ and a teaching certificate. She taught music in ARK and GA and was the music department chair of Clark University. Florence married, had two daughters, and moved back to ARK but could not find work in the racially segregated town, so her family then moved to Chicago. As part of the Chicago Black Renaissance movement, she studied composition, orchestration, and organ with the leading teachers there, and premiered one of her compositions at NANM.

Florence started working as an organist for silent film screenings and composed songs for radio ads. She became friends with Langston Hughes and Marian Anderson, who aided her in her future successes as a composer. Florence also began to achieve national recognition and awards for her compositions and performances in “The Negro in Music” concerts. The WPA Symphony Orchestra and the Women's Symphony Orchestra of Chicago also performed many of her compositions in their concerts that featured women composers and performers. Florence was inducted into ASCAP and published two spiritual arrangements dedicated to Marian Anderson, who performed them on a regular basis.

She also had a school in Chicago named in her honor and had a piano owned by her placed in the school. The UARK Honors College held a concert honoring her and her music. An International Florence Price Festival celebrated her legacy; she was named the BBC Radio 3's Composer of the Week. Florence has a crater on the planet Mercury and an opera, My Name is Florence, composed in her honor. Her music received praise for its blending of traditional western forms and African American cultural sounds, creating a uniquely American sound.

She broke the race barrier for African American composers in major symphonic venues and paved the way for greater representation and performance of the works of African American composers within the classical music tradition, expanding opportunities for artists who had previously faced exclusion from mainstream orchestras and concert halls. A substantial collection of her works and papers was found in an abandoned dilapidated house, her summer home, on the outskirts of Chicago.

G.Schumer acquired the exclusive worldwide rights to Florence Price's complete catalog with many classical performers soon releasing her newly recorded works in the Uncovered series which focused on the music of Black composers.

Florence died at the age of 66, was married twice, and had two children.